Treasure

Treasure. 

Most of the time when we think about treasure we think about currency. A treasure chest full of gold and sparkling diamonds might come to mind. However, our most valuable treasure is the currency of our time, and yet we more times than not allow it to slip through our fingers like coins falling on to the sidewalk. 

Author Elizabeth Gilbert realizes the value of  time, and the resource that it really is. She confesses, "...the single most precious resource that I possess, the one currency that can never be restored once it's spent, is my time...I know that this is my treasure."

Having time is kind of like being the son or daughter of a billionaire, you know a trust fund baby. Because it has been handed to you so freely over the years, and you haven't had to work for it, you don't take it too seriously. It's freely spent, never really being accounted for because you just assume it will always be there.  

If time is my treasure than maybe I should treat it with more reverence?  Time is kind of like fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource. Those dinosaurs are not coming back, and neither is your time. Just as wasteful is to spend too much time stuck in the past. Reminiscing every now and then is fine, but putting your efforts into the time you have today is a much better use of your treasure. 

Gilbert also reminds us, "I know that my time , and my minutes on this earth are numbered, and I don't know when that number is up." She and my beloved high school principal W.P. Durrett, who would remind us daily that, "It was later than you think," are both reminders of the reality of this. Although to be honest, as high school seniors we really had no idea what Mr. Durrett was talking about, and brushed it off as not important. Now we are kindred spirits!  It's amazing what forty-three years will do for you. 

So each morning as you awake to take possession once again of your treasure make sure that you appreciate its value.