During my last two years of high school, there was one thing I was always anxious about - the final exams at the end of each term. You may be thinking, "is there any student who's never anxious about impending tests and exams?"
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Yes, I know exam time is usually a stressful one for most students. But in those days, my anxiety was coming from an angle you won't expect. I was never worried about not being adequately prepared for the exam.
My fear had to do with TIME.
I was always wondering if I would have enough time to respond to all the questions in the manner I desired. In most cases, I was able to finish on time, with a few exceptions.
Those exceptions were in the science lab exams, especially in physics and chemistry. For these, you had to perform experiments, take measurements, tabulate the results, and draw conclusions from them. Sometimes, you had to graph the results with pencil and paper.
For each lab exam, you usually had to perform two different experiments. And you had to do all these within the 3-hour exam time limit. This was what I always freaked out about. While I didn't have issues with knowing what to do, I was always afraid I wouldn't have enough time to finish.
In many cases, I was able to complete the work - so my fears were unfounded. In other instances, I had to rush through the latter part of collating the results and graphing them. Those were the times I wished I had more time.
Just another hour, or even a half-hour would have done the trick. But alas . . .
. . .when the time was up, the time was up.
Our lives are just like those lab exams. There's a time limit to them. We don't live forever. Unlike the exams however, none of us know how much time we have left.
Even though we know our time on this planet is not unlimited, we seem to not live with the conscious awareness of that fact. We tend to conduct our affairs as if we have all the time in the world.
This has nothing to do with how old or young you are. It doesn't matter whether you're twenty-nine or eighty-nine. That's because every week, you hear of people in their twenties or thirties who suddenly passed away.
They simply ran out of time.
There were people who woke up yesterday morning but were gone by last night. Their time was up. But most of them didn't know it would be their last morning.
I wonder what they would have done differently had they known without a doubt that they were living their last moments. Sometimes, I wonder what I would do.
Would I spend it scrolling through social media feeds? Or would I do something more meaningful with it?
It's not my intention to kick off your week on a gloomy note. But I want you to seriously consider what you're spending your time on.
Knowing you don't have unlimited time, shouldn't you do something tangible with every moment you have? Not knowing how much time you have left, don't you think it's better to make every minute count, and choose to make a positive mark with the time you've been given?
With the awareness that tomorrow is not guaranteed, you and I should use the time we have today well. Don't you think?
That, I think, is living a fulfilled life.