What did I do with my TIME??

 

I pick up a pebble from the shore and throw it into the lake and watch fascinated as it bounces through the water and spreading the beautiful ripples every time it bounce. Again I pick up another and throw it after the first watching in fascination the same ripples passing through the water. Sitting alone on the banks of the vast stretching lake, enjoying the beautiful evening, I look around searching for another suitable pebble to throw. But this time I can't find any good ones, I already threw the best ones I had. I pick up another one, a little better than the others around and throw it again, sitting back and waiting for the beautiful ripples to flow again. But this time, although the ripples come, they are not so fascinating like the one's before.

  I pick up another pebble and throw it into the water again, just a pebble, just a second to throw. It is just a second though and with each second a small opportunity, but what do I care? What does it matter if I throw away these little seconds, these little opportunities? But I forgot, the seconds add up don't they?

 I try to look back and wonder how many little seconds I threw away and did not care? But as I pick up a jar from the depths of my memory and open it, I find it stacked up full with all the times I let fly by, along with so many opportunities they brought and like the two good little pebbles I threw away at first, I don't have any more good seconds. I drop the jar and spread all the contents on the floor and sit back and consider each seconds, each missed opportunity and the weights of each possibility. It seemed so easy to let just a second fly by, blinded by the illusion of an infinite supply, but do we really have an infinite supply??

I wonder now, what did I do to fill my time with? How did I let all these time fly by? All those comfortable evenings. The rare off days. The much needed break.  Did I spend those time wisely, or like the small pebbles along the shore have I also thrown them away carelessly always believing that I could fish them up anytime??

As I sit around wondering, I have no idea what I did, what was so important to let so much time fly by?? If  I think carefully and make a list of all those things I did to fill my time with, I wonder how many could I do without. The moments spent surfing the net aimlessly, watching a movie which I didn't like, spending a little more time talking to the person I liked but who I knew wouldn't be mine. All those long hours spent napping comfortably covered in the mattress. I wonder if I knew that all these would one day stack up and stare me in the face, would I have acted differently or would I have carried on enjoying the little comforts??

But, as I sit around alone in the banks of the melancholic lake, I wonder would it matter now that I know all I lost? As I stand up and return to the chaos of everyday life, would I strive to make up for all those lost moments or would I again crave for the little comforts again?? One year from now as I would splash down and try to swim through all the chaos, uncertainty and survival of my professional life, would I remember this moment, this feeling of loss or would I again pick up the little pebbles carelessly and throw them away??