They say time and tide waits for no man. I came across this while buying myself a test pad from Minerva Bookstores in KL. At that tender age of 10, I never quite understood the meaning of that phrase. I thought it was some kind of a catchy phrase on the cover. I thought it meant time and tide waits for no MAN, as in man…the male race. Only as I grew older, with gaining experience in life and troubles life has to offer, I realized it meant Time and tide waits for no man-as in mankind. It waits for no one. You might have all the gold in the world to offer to buy it, but hey, it doesn't wait for you. Time is in a whole different dimension from us, quite ignorant to how we want it to be, but it makes us revolve our life around it.
We need time. We need time to study, to eat, to sleep, and to accomplish all the daily chores of living. We also need time to know and understand our partners, children, and our friends. Most of our relationships, in fact, require more time than we have, and usually, we don't have that much of time to offer, for we also need some of this presiouc element to care for ourselves, to be alone, lost in OUR thoughts.
People are then, weird too. Some spend all their time on business. Some on studies. Some on games. Some on work…family and list goes on. Never, or maybe a handful only spend time on everything. The reason they spend most of their time only on one particular thing is because that is important. Now, think again, do we have 9 lives like cats to come back overtime and live for one a goal a life? No!
Yet, I always find people taking granted of the time they have. Have you ever heard and maybe even thought of doing something, but then putting it on hold, claiming it's a waste of time? With the only life we have, how can we say something is a waste time? Nothing is a waste of time, if you put it in a positive way. Because if you don’t even Toastmasters is a waste of time. What happens besides a bunch of people talking and talking and giving speeches? Yet, if you think of it the other way around, it is beneficial. You learn something new, you meet new people who bring you into their experiences via their wonderful speeches. And putting things on hold serves no purpose. Chances comes knocking on our door once, and rarely people get a second chance on chances.
I live with people who keep giving what for, or no time as an excuse, and I hate it. In my opinion, there is no such thing as no time. We FIND the time. I once watched a movie that brought me to tears. Movies are sometimes the best teachers of life. Sepi-a malay movie. A wife was complaining to her husband about him not spending much time with her and their 3 year old son. He was always on the move, and busy with business. And overtime the wife complained, the only reply she got was, don't worry, we have all the time in the world, now let me concentrate on business first. And one day, the wife died-they all met with an accident and she died on the spot. After that, the husband really changed, and took care of his son. There wasn't a day that passed in his life without him regretting not spending much time with his wife.
Even I have had a lesson in time. Ever since I came to INTEC, I never contacted my cousins or friends from high school. I had the perception I would have time once I'm somebody in the society. I gave excuses, saying I'm busy for family gatherings and stuff. All this changed the day my cousin died, and I knew, if I was there for her then, she wouldn't have died the way she did. It was then me and my whole family realized, nothing is really permanent in life, and if there is something we thought of doing, we should do it there and then.
If today is the day you feel like having fun, by all means have fun to the max. If today is the day you feel like crying your hearts out, do it. And if there is a girl or guy you like, go for it, the worse that can ever happen is they turning you down. Never put things on hold. Never say no time to anybody, even if whatever you doing is not going to benefit you, it may benefit others. They will be your well-wisher, and you will be blessed by God. Pu yourself out there, have the life you want. Yes, studies may be everything now, but guess what, you can't be 19 or 20 twice. Trust me, you wont want to tell your children one day that you were too busy to have fun when the age was right, and now that you want to have fun the age is not right. Learn new things. If possible, learn everything. There is saying in tamil stating, 'What we learn is only a handful of knowledge, but what is left to learn is a big as the universe'.
Living your life to the fullest can never be a waste of time, but not living it to the fullest is a crime. Be like the clock. Always keep on ticking by involving yourself in various things and learning new things. These small knowledge and experience modules will perhaps one day take you to your bigger goal some day.
Take Rose from Titanic for example, at the brink of death, Jack makes her promise to never let go of life, and to do what ever she wanted. She did. She learnt horse riding, flying a plane and many other things. And she was a happy lady the day she passed. Well, at least the best reward you can get by living your life to the fullest is, you die with no regrets.
Remember: You cant change the past, but you can ruin the future by worrying about the present.
