Owning Time

(excerpt from my journal entry dated April 6, 2012, Good Friday)

. . .there’s this common notion that we live on borrowed time, and I was thinking if you borrowed something, shouldn’t you return it? I mean, shouldn’t you be burdened with the responsibility of returning it one day—whether you like it or not?

Our bodies, we return to the earth. Our possessions? The fact that you cannot really take them with you when you die (or, from a materialist’s perspective, you cannot enjoy them anymore when you die) proves one thing: your ownership of them is temporary. These possessions outlast us.

“How can you own something that which will outlast you?” sabi nga ni Macliing Dulag.

Even this very life we have, to what extent do we own this? To what extent do we own something which we have very little control of? I mean, you can decide on certain things about it, but then, there are others, too, who can decide for you.

That’s not the same with time. With time, you can choose which things or decisions or occasions or with whom you can spend it on.

Perhaps that’s the wisdom behind having just one person, one body, one self: to enable us to experience the fullness of time ownership—the fullness of life.

Imagine, there’s three of you. One is assigned to do tasks for your parents and family, the second is to spend time with your friends, and the third is for yourself. That would be spreading yourself thin—where is the freedom in that?

And dealing with the complications of having three (or more) of you, and you happen to be stupid, then that’s three times the stupidity. That would certainly eat a lot of time.

But with just one of you, you assert your freedom. You choose. “I decide to spend my time on this, and less time on that.”

That power to decide—it’s not something that others can easily take away from you, is it? They can force you, even compel you, but ultimately, it is you who can always “take your time” and tell others to kiss your arse, right?

One ironic thing about owning time is that it spends itself automatically. It doesn’t wait for anyone. Whether you spend it wisely or while it away on sleep and leisure, it remains “there for you” always, ever faithful to your bidding—yet, ever faithless with its pacing. Or rather, ever faithless with its uncompromising pace.

This aspect of time ownership—does this mean that, maybe, we don’t really own time? That it is “borrowed” just the same?

Well, if you borrowed it, where do you return it? To whom do you return it?

Just now, a notion came to me: The true masters in this life are those who truly own their time. When we were babies, we did not decide much of our time, others did. WHEN we fed, WHEN we slept, WHEN to do what things, etc.

But as we grew older, we are given the power to decide. More and more, we learn to use that power. Up until the very moment we die.

Looking back at it all, how much of our time did we really own? How many of the minutes and seconds we spend in this world can we truly say, “Ah, yes, in those times, I actually lived” or “In those moments, I was living life according to how I believed it should be lived.” That’s real freedom, I think. Whether you’re in prison or as free as a bird.

We can be great masters. I have to keep this in mind. In this life, just being free is worth it.