Where did that hour go?

The number of times I was told in the last week to prepare myself for the loss of an hour of precious sleeping time. Clocks Spring forward and in Autumn fall back. A little phrase that my good friend used more than once in the last week.

I did notice when I looked at the timings on the golf course that indeed an hour of golf had slipped off the schedule. Now that did not affect me because as yet I do not think I would manage to play a complete round without setting myself back a bit.

It is really amusing how this hour becomes so important and much time is spent talking about the great loss. In reality, of course, I will not have lived an hour less than I might have or maybe an hour longer. The hands of time will onward move and it will matter not a whit what time we humans put upon it.

Of course, all this talk did what such things do to my little mind, it got it going. I began to wonder about all the things I do with time and asked how many of those were worthy uses of this precious commodity that I can lose an hour so simply. 

I could spend two years making phone calls to people who aren't home? Sound absurd? According to one time management study, that's how much time the average person spends trying to return calls to people who never seem to be in. 

Not only that, we spend six months waiting for the traffic light to turn green, and another eight months reading junk mail. Now that is one bit of time I have saved, I just never ever even look at all that unasked for rubbish.  

These unusual statistics should cause us to do a time-use evaluation. 

Once we recognize that simple "life maintenance" can chip away at our time in such huge blocks, we will see how vital it is that we don't busy ourselves "in vain".

There is a well-known passage from the Old Testament that I frequently quoted on this Sunday of the year, "You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You". 

The author meant that to an eternal god our time on earth is brief. 

Our time is so brief that we should see it as it is.  When we throw away one precious second, we throw away one of the most precious commodities  

Each minute is an irretrievable gift an unredeemable slice of eternity. 

Sure, we have to make the phone calls, and we must wait at the light. But what about the rest of our time? 

Are we using it to advance the cause of a life well lived?  Do we use time to enhance our relationship with those who add to the quality of our lives? 

Is our time well spent?  How many precious moments will we let filter through our hands? 

One of the great secrets I have learned from my study of the sage is that I need not change a thing I do other than to become aware in a deep and meaningful way of the precious gift I have. So today I might have seemed to have lost an hour, but rejoice I am awake and still here and before me a day when I will rejoice in the moments of my day.

Have a marvellous one.