Timing
People always say ‘it will happen at the right time’.
But just what is the right time? Sounds simple to me! I’ll first conjure up a set of numbers corresponding to a date and time in my head. Then I’ll look at my timekeeping device – I use my phone and laptop but of course glance at a clock, watch and calendar when I get the chance. If what I see matches the numbers in my head, it is the right time.
I think this initial thought is because time seems so objective these days. The precision for which the times on each and every one of our smartphones and laptops can be aligned means. Almost nobody can blame their lateness on a faulty or incorrectly-adjusted watch. Everyone in the room has the same time on their smartphones, computers and smartwatches. Heck, everyone on the globe can access the same time with the Greenwich Mean Time system! I think the people in the past centuries would drop their jaws in awe at this innovation.
Yet, I think I’m wrong. The numbers corresponding to time are figments of my imagination, as they are figments of imagination in each and every one of you. Furthermore, our timekeeping devices were made by someone else and the time they display at any given moment is based on some notion of time invented by yet another person or group of people.
Different people have different sense of times. Some people are faster. Some people are slower. Some people are stricter with time. Other people are looser with time. Furthermore, one person can be faster, slower, stricter or looser with time over time! Daily mood swings, moving to a different country, entering a different chapter. All of these things and many more can influence one person’s sense of time.
If you survey a group of people about the timings of their activities, I believe you will always find a more or less ‘average’ number. For example, you can ask people what time they wake up in the morning and you’ll get an average time of 8am. You can go one step further in duration and ask what age did they hit puberty, and you would get an average of 13 years old for girls and 15 years old for boys. To go a step EVEN further, the same goes for all domains of life! With enough knowledge and experience, one can calculate some predictable average time until a bacterium divides into two bacteria, until a caterpillar becomes a pupa, until a flower blooms from a tree!
Yet not one wakes up every day exactly at 8am. Yet, no one hits puberty at exactly 13 years or 15 years old. Yet, no bacterium will divide exactly after 12 hours of being single. Yet, no caterpillar becomes a pupa after exactly one week. Yet, no flower blooms from a tree after six months.
The right time for anything is unpredictable. The right time might not even exist!
Yet, the right time can happen. And when it happens, you have to enjoy every bit of it!
For indeed, life happens at the right time.