Time Reminds Us to Live and Love Life

Remember when we were kids and thought the most important achievement was having a later bedtime? Or how, in elementary school, classmates predicted their future — careers, spouses and the number of children they’d have — simply by the number of times they’d flip-flop an origami fortune teller.

When we were teenagers, we’d beg for a longer curfew, stating all our friends stayed out after 10 p.m. And as adults, we ask for more hours in a day to finish what we would have, could have, or should have completed earlier. No matter what stage in life, time management is a constant factor with which we struggle. Whether we need more (or less) to rewind or fast forward, or stop it all together, time remains a facet of life we wish to but will more than likely never control.

We live our lives on time’s time, and forget to take the time to remind ourselves why we have this time. Time knocked on our brains and wrestled our hearts awake to the reality that it waits for no one — not even those who we see as invincible. First the loss of television comic Ed McMahon, whose time here was spent making our late nights better. After a day of work, his humor and personality paired with the great Johnny Carson eased our minds for a period of time before another day began. Time then called a true angel, Farrah Fawcett, as she lost her battle with cancer. She shared her most fragile time on our television screens as she endured this sickness in the public’s eye. Through her pain those of us blessed to have our health were reminded of the time we still have left.

And finally on June 25, time might have actually stood still with the news of Michael Jackson’s sudden death. The world-renowned King of Pop transformed the face of music with his art — and tried his best to transform the world with his heart. Besides being one of, if not the greatest, music icons of all-time, Jackson’s time behind the fame was spent in healing the world of hunger and poverty, with love and genuine humanity.

We cannot control time or what it holds for us. But we control our own actions and how these actions affect ours as well as others’ time.