Seasons greetings, and happy new year.
“There is time for everything..” I hear that a lot. But hardly do I hear, “there is time for everyone.”
Contrary to popularly held notions, no one has a timeline for their life. Clocks and watches were invented by humans to keep track of time but time itself is no invention of man. It's an eternal phenomenon no human is in control of. Therefore, we do not control time, we can only control ourselves within the purview of time. We do not have more of it or less of it. Thus we cannot waste it. We can only waste chances of which time is only a purveyor.
I come from a place where people work their life out to make ends meet. The rule is that you have to work. I’m sure the rat race is universal. But the hustle doesn't always pay the hard worker. Some do next to nothing and still go home with huge paychecks. Some have had to break rules and barriers, and got away with it. Some tried the same but went down for it. It's a culture of struggle. Everyone wants something out of life. Is it not the reason we're even here? And yet
”... the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Suffice to say that self comparison is unwise, if not unnecessary. All fingers are not equal. Why then do we compare? For boasting and self glory of course. In a blink of an eye, everything we pride ourselves on could crumble right before our eyes. Pride they say, “goeth before a fall”. I'm a witness of many of such falls.
A wise man once offered a prayer,
“...teach us to number our days so we may apply apply our hearts unto wisdom”.
He was more like saying, “we ain't even sure about the duration of our life span, so we either learn to live right, and live well as best as we can”.
To disdain other people for not having what we have, or living our kind of life is one of the greatest shows of epic ignorance. Maybe, it's the way society conditions our mind to think. But doesn't that show how society is nothing but a pile of our own shit?
Until we allow ourselves to accept the fact that everyone has their own unique way of living and surviving in this world just as the fish was made to swim in the water and not hop on trees, we would continue to treat one another with contempt and disrespect solely on the basis of social status, class privilege, racial or ethnic differences, or financial prestige.
Personally, I've endured a lot of disdain, disrespect, and insults from people, especially those who think of themselves more than they actually are. My reactions were usually explosive. But thank God I had a lot of growing up to do, now I don't even flinch. I realized that people don't really know anything.
I don't condemn people. But I do, most times, want to question their character. I hold people in high esteem not because of what they are but because of who they are, and it takes deep looking to see who people truly are. It doesn’t matter to me whether you are the son or daughter of “who cares who” . I only respect you as much as you respect yourself and other people. Someone said to me, “this attitude won't take you far in life.” I guess he is right, but not entirely so. How badly do I want to go far in life that I have to lick arses to get there? Respect to whom it’s due. Honor to whom it’s due. Duty to whom it’s due, and reproof to whom it ought.
Humor me for digressing. The narrative was on the invincibility of time and our lack of grip on it. As I pointed earlier, we can only control ourselves, we can’t control time. It just keeps running while we tag along. Therefore, we can only chose our own pace when running with time. You pace may be fast. For others it may be slow but steadily we all reach our various destinations.
Life was given to all of us to live within the purview of time and its accompanying seasons and situations. Seasons change. Situations differ. But time remains constant. We are all bound by choice to make out of these seasons and situations whatever we want or can. It is who we become in the process that matters in the end.
I chose to become better, because I love being better—a better human. I can put up with people outside the circumference but within my circle there must be light and sanity.
Thanks for reading through.