Currency of Time
For much of our existence, we’ve been made to feel that time is a static measurement that perpetually moves forward with each second of the clock.
Our understanding of time as seconds on a clock was introduced in the 19th century when the second became established as a unit of scientific measurement based on a recommendation by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
A century later, it was Einstein who introduced the concept that time is relative, meaning that the rate at which time passes depends on the observer's frame of reference. Today, we culturally discuss how our sense of time completely shifted a few years back when a global pandemic brought the world to a pause.
Yet it is the currency of time that keeps my mind swirling. We might think of time as the most generous currency of all. One that is forever plentiful and abundant as our calendars are forever propelling us forward to the next day, week, month, year … I challenge us to alternatively consider that time is the currency that is forever depleting, with seconds on the clock falling off into the abyss of human existence.
We can’t hold onto time. We can’t pause it or stop it from moving forward.
We instead must think of time as the most precious currency, one that flows out of our lives as quickly as it flows in. Like a river that consistently flows downstream, time is an ever moving currency that can’t be accumulated.
If you imagine your sense of time in this way, what might you do with the time that you have? A famous yogi once considered that our lives can be measured in the number of breaths we take in our lifetime, with the lens that from the moment we’re born we come into this world with a certain number of breaths to experience. Not an unlimited supply.
If you could imagine the number of breaths that you have to take in your life as finite, how would you spend each of those breaths? How quickly would you let them slide by? How much could you slow your life down just by elongating each breath? Making each moment one lived with awareness, connection & intention.
