One less gumball in the jar

Time is a difficult concept to grasp. The idea that the world existed long before you were here and will continue long past your exit doesn't process for me.

I struggle to come to grips with the fact that life is temporary and that every day that passes is one less day that you have.

The part that makes it interesting, is that once you are done with this game (life), you don’t get a do-over. You don’t get to play the game again.

This is the way I think about time.

Imagine when you were born you were gifted a jar with an incalculable amount of gum balls.

You can’t tell the exact number, but it seems like a lifetime’s worth.

Every day you open that jar and pluck out one of those brightly colored gumballs.

Each individual day may not have an impact, but as the years go by the jar slowly gets lower.

You still can’t quite tell how many gum balls are left but you can tell there are fewer.

But, alas, a new day another gumball.

Let’s say one day you go to grab out a gumball and you realize there is a cardboard insert in your jar taking up space. Rather than the jar being as full as you thought it was, it is getting closer to the bottom.

Yikes.

You keep on, eating one gumball per day until eventually you reach in and you realize that you are out of gumballs.

The jar has run dry.

The inexhaustible jar has been exhausted.

Now, let’s say each gumball represents a day of your life.

Each morning when you rise you are taking one more gumball out of your jar. On top of this, the jar isn’t fair. At anytime your jar could run empty. Your gumball tomorrow isn’t guaranteed even if it seems like you have thousands of gumballs left. Would you take a couple of bites of today’s gumball and just spit it out or would you enjoy your gumball and try to blow the world’s biggest bubble?

In life, you are not competing against anyone outside of time. Time is our greatest rival. And the bad news for us is that time has remained undefeated. All we can hope to do is maximize our time on this Earth, live the most vibrant life possible, and experience all the world has to offer before time wipes our pieces off the chess board.

One of the most important things that we can do is recognize that our time is temporary and we have one go at this life. Time flies and unless we capture it, then it will fly right past us.

Happy Monday, enjoy today’s gumball.