Living Toward Time

A Posture for Fulfilment

Having wandered through the corridors of time—its mystery, its embodiment in flesh, its shifting textures of Chronos and Kairos, its burdens and its glimpses of eternity—we find ourselves asking a practical question. What posture might we assume in this age if we are to live not merely within time but wisely and well toward it?

The modern condition often conspires against such wisdom. We live at a pace that confuses urgency with importance, productivity with worth, longevity with depth. The watch on the wrist, the calendar on the screen, the algorithm in the pocket all whisper that life is a race to be won. Yet the reflections we have traced suggest otherwise. Time is not an enemy to outwit, nor a commodity to hoard, but a gift to be inhabited with care.

Three stances, I think, may guide us.

First, attentiveness. The moments that shimmer with eternity do not announce themselves with fanfare. They arrive quietly, in a child’s laughter, a bird’s flight, a word of kindness. To notice them requires a discipline of presence, a willingness to attend without hurry. Attentiveness is the door through which Kairos enters.

Second, humility. To live in a time-bound body is to accept limits—of energy, of lifespan, of control. Mortality is not an error in the design but part of its meaning. To acknowledge our finitude is not despair but liberation, for it allows us to value what is given rather than resent what is withheld.

Third, reverence. If eternity can be glimpsed in an hour, then each hour is worthy of honour. To treat time as sacred does not mean solemnity at every turn, but gratitude. It means recognising that the ordinary tasks of life—washing dishes, writing emails, waiting at traffic lights—are all occasions in which the eternal might break through, if only we allow it.

This posture does not require us to withdraw from the world. On the contrary, it frees us to engage it more fully. Attentiveness enables us to love better, humility keeps us from the arrogance of thinking we own time, and reverence teaches us to receive each day as a gift. Such a life is not defined by its length but by its depth, not measured by calendars but by meaning.

The question of time, then, is not merely philosophical. It is spiritual, ethical, and existential. How shall we live in an age that fragments attention, denies mortality, and treats hours as units of profit? We might begin by remembering that every tick of the clock is an invitation: to be present, to be grateful, to be human.

Perhaps, in the end, the wisest posture is not to strive for mastery of time but to cultivate friendship with it. To walk with time as a companion rather than wrestle with it as an adversary. To live not against its flow but within its rhythm, trusting that even as the days pass, something eternal abides.

And so we return to the beginning. What does time mean? It means the theatre in which love and loss, joy and sorrow, finitude and eternity play their parts. What does it mean to live in a time-bound body? It means to live truly human lives, marked by fragility yet capable of glory. What does this mean for our search for meaning? It means that meaning is not found outside of time but within it, in the attentive, humble, reverent embrace of the hours we are given.

To live this way is to live toward time, and perhaps, through time, toward eternity.