Pardon?

Do you need time?

What an odd question?

Yes people often say that they need more time, but time is set in stone, so what they really need is to prioritise how they use it.

It may be that they need to make a decision, they need more time to do that. But that’s not more time that’s just a delay in the decision while time keeps marching inexorably onwards. In other words how much time do you want to waste doing what you don’t want to, not doing what you do want to, and not deciding?

It’s not more time it’s a chunk of your life you won’t get back.

Another way of looking at this is that sometimes we need to take time to reflect on our lives. Again we have to make that time. It has to be a choice to take it.

Then when people have suffered loss, an illness or severe mental health issues, we often ask if they need more time? This is time that can be found, but it’s not more time, it’s less of something else.

When it comes to loss, and there is no more time on this plane available, we all need more time, sometimes I’ve wished for just ten more seconds, anything. Yet again, it’s not there for the taking.

I’m sure there are going to be some fascinating answers to this question, but I’ll end with ways I can see that you can create more time:

• When you take time to think before you act, which can save time that you can use more beneficially.
• When you take time to rest so that you can keep going, or to recover properly.
• When you take time for those you love rather than to dedicate yourself to work.
• When you make time for those who need you, such as elderly parents, or your children, or the person you promised to spend your life with. As in, not the odd weekend if work doesn’t call, or an hour late in the evening to say hi, eat a sandwich and collapse into bed. Or cutting them in around your hobby.
• When you know you’re going to make a huge mistake, and you take the split second before you say yes to trust yourself and say no. I know I’m not alone in having a divorce behind me that a few moments of real self-honesty and trust would have prevented.

So you can waste time, take time, or make time, but you can’t have more time whether you need it or not.

Something to take time and make time to think about.

However, at the end of the day we need time to tell us the time.

Deb xx