Be Friends with Time
The best friend we can have in this lifetime is time. When we are wounded, it patiently heals us; when we are lost, it patiently guides us to grow; when the whole world misunderstands and doubts us, it is still willing to stand by us patiently, and one day it will set everything straight. When we cannot be sure whether a friendship or a love is trustworthy, it acts like a touchstone, helping us tell the genuine from the false.
Even if we have nothing at all, we still have time. As long as we draw another breath, time belongs to us. And if one day we leave this world, time will go on to heal the hearts of those who love us, just as it once healed ours; it will treat our relatives and friends the way it treated us. With time as our friend, what is there left to worry about?
If life makes us restless, we may quietly sit down and think about how to ask this friend time for help. Hand over to time the problems we cannot solve right now and the tasks we cannot finish; hand over to time the unwanted emotions we cannot drive away. Time is a friend we can rely on for a whole lifetime, and it never fails to help us solve the problems that seem unsolvable today and overcome the difficulties that seem insurmountable today.
To be friends with time, we must be as patient as it is. The way we treat time is the way time will treat us. If we cherish time, time will cherish us and reward us richly; if we waste time, time will waste us and leave us in a sorry state.
Yet on the whole, time is a generous and fair friend. No matter how people treat it, it holds no grudge. Once we decide to treat it with the utmost goodwill, it will, regardless of how we squandered it before, treat us well and let bygones be bygones.
I love watching the whole process of a seed growing into a mature plant, and I love sharing the joyful moments of a child's growth. These things make me feel the power of time very clearly: no eagerness for quick results can alter the course by which all things grow; every living thing must be tempered by time before it can thrive.
The moment I think of this, no anxiety remains in my heart. If a wish in my heart has not yet come true, I hand it over to time. A wish is like a seed: it, too, must be tempered by time before it can grow strong. If my wish is a bad seed, time will quietly make it wither away. Because I trust this friend time completely, my heart is utterly at peace, and my life feels full and unhurried.
We cannot greedily claim an endless supply of time; all the time we can master is the span of our own lives. But that does not matter. This one lifetime is enough. Whether it is long or short, within it we can experience every beautiful thing we are capable of experiencing. The most foolish thing of all is to spend our time on things that make us deeply unhappy; that is a waste and an insult to time. The finiteness of the time we have determines that we should not waste it.
Trust time, be friends with time, and you will find that joy often lights up your brow and that a smile blooms across your face like a flower. When time fulfills a wish you have long awaited, you will know what wild delight is; when time brings you the most reliable love and friendship, you will understand what a complete life is; when time finally proves that your choice was right, you will know how meaningful perseverance can be.
Time is truthful, fair, and generous, and it is important to believe this. Those who are willing to be friends with time do not expect to strike it rich overnight or rise to fame in a day, nor do they unrealistically expect physical or mental ills to vanish at once. They simply and patiently polish themselves, slowly, in the long river of time.