Regardless of anything else, I am always aware of time passing. I always have been. I’ve always had a sense that my life began at a point on a line, and at some point in the near or distant future, it will end. I know my days are numbered. I am fairly healthy right now, but the reality is, we all end. Our spirits escape these bodies, and ultimately this brain, these arms, these feet that I depend on each day, will fall to earth and dissolve within it. It’s the bitter side of the gift. The curtain comes up, and the curtain will go down. I will know it, as my siblings will, and my parents, and my nieces and nephews, on down the line.

Which is why time management becomes all the more important. When you know you are working with finite resources, you use them carefully. If you care about your life, that is.

And so April of 2014 is here. It is the fourth month of this year, and the 45th April I have walked through in my life. Soon, April will become May, and May then June, and then summer will be upon us. And that summer will be used well, or wasted.

What do you do with your time?

What do you wish you were doing with your time?

What do you hope people know about you when your time is up?

Will you have used your time well?

I am always aware of time passing, but I am a poor steward of my time. I spend so much of it waiting. Waiting on phone calls from friends, or visits from family. Waiting for lucky breaks and obvious opportunities. Waiting for things to happen for me, and for things to happen to me.

Waiting is a safe way to live, but it’s not the best way to live. A lot of years get burned if you will be passive and wait for life to happen for you. Friendships go unmanned, possibilities get postponed, potential goes untapped, and purposes go wholly missed. Passivity is the enemy of productivity.

Use your time. Dream, plan, do. Set dates. Coordinate people. Dive in on what your heart tells you to do. Move.

April will be over soon enough, and after it, May. After it, 2014- then 2015, then 2016.

Tick tock.

Move.

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Image Credit: “Motion Blur” by Nioxxe via Flickr. Creative Commons license.