Counting the Cost...
Spending time is an interesting phrase. We say it without thinking about it. But do we ever stop to think, what we spend our time on?
What else do we spend? We spend money… Recognising this means that we must recognise that time has a value - we choose to spend it.
I suspect lots of us think carefully about spending money - will I buy those shoes, that doughnut, that drone? We are super careful with our money, we are super careful with how we spend it. And that is because we have a limited amount.
Spoiler alert - we have a limited amount of time too. How much do we think about the time we spend on things? When we run out of money we seek more - from parents, from a job or maybe from friends as a loan. But have you ever considered how we obtain more time? How do we earn it or borrow it?
In May of this year, our Great Dane had puppies. At first they were sweet, blind and swam around their pen like little fish but soon they were bouncing around in the garden and now, only four months later, we have been sent a picture of one posing with her owner, feet up on the stable door of their house. As Virginia Woolf observed, Time Passes, ‘especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave’.
We are all changing all of the time; we all only have one go at life. We will all only have one first week in September 2019, one chance to give our all in House Music, one chance to play in this weekend’s match or to have a go at today’s audition for the senior play; we have only one chance to throw ourselves at our hymn today, one chance to enjoy the energy that might bring or to choose not to,.
A great way to spend our time is to try something new. New things remind us to be humble, help us to admire others and ensure we continue to be learning beings, seeking to gain experiences with every passing day.
What prevents us from trying something new? At Monkton last week, all the staff tried something new in our training last week, from Pilates to Knitting to Fencing to Cookery. What prevents us from trying something new? Fear. But we cannot earn time.
What will you choose to spend time on in the coming days? Fortnite? Your phone? Have you ever clocked the time you spend getting drawn into social media messaging, streaking or playing a game on your phone like Cwazy Cupcakes (for the Brooklyn 99 fans)... Is that really what you want to spend your time on? Before we know it, like our Great Dane puppies, we will all have grown a little bit older. We can never get back that time. So what will you choose to spend yours on today? Will it be worth it?
