There are few things more annoying than the ticking of a clock when one is trying to sleep. And yet, there are few things more profound than that same ticking when one is trying to think. Each tick is a reminder: another second gone, another chance to act, another step closer to the inevitable silence. Time is, if nothing else, the great metronome of existence.
I confess that I have an uneasy relationship with time. In my youth, I believed it infinite, a great stretch of highway with no end in sight. Now, I am beginning to suspect it is more of a circular track, looping endlessly through work, bills, and the occasional holiday. As I glance with increasing frequency at obituaries, I see time more as a drumbeat, steady, relentless, summoning us forward whether we are ready or not.
It would be tempting to despair at this rhythm, to rage against the brevity of life. But I have come to think of time less as an enemy and more as a conductor. Its beat reminds us that our solos will not last forever, that the music depends upon our willingness to play our part fully while we can.
When I consider what I want to pass on, I find myself less concerned with urging my nieces and nephews to seize the day in reckless abandon. Carpe diem, though noble, too often sounds like an excuse for foolishness. Rather, I wish for them a sense of tempo: to know when to linger, when to accelerate, when to rest. To live not in frantic denial of time’s limits but in harmony with its rhythm.
For there is a peculiar grace in limits. A song is beautiful because it ends. A meal is delightful because it cannot be endless. Even life itself gains poignancy from its brevity. The relentless drumbeat of time is not there to torment us but to keep us from falling asleep at the keys.
So I say: listen for the drum. Do not let it terrify you. Let it remind you to live attentively, to love generously, and to laugh loudly before the final cymbal crash. If I can model that for the generation after me, then perhaps I will have kept time well.
