Tempus Fugit

Time Flies

I’m writing this on my forty-sixth birthday. I was born on the first day of Spring, although it didn’t fall on my birthday this year. It was cool this morning, and I didn’t want to get out from underneath the covers. I actually drifted back off after the 6 am alarm, and was woken by my sweetheart wishing me a happy birthday, while the 7 am alarm trumpeted on the bedside table. I wake to Fanfare for the Common Man, by Aaron Copland, as my alarm each morning. So after my kiss, I silence the trumpet and get on up. I grind some Tim Horton’s whole beans, and sit down to write my journal entry for the day.

Funny enough, my lesson today is focused on the Latin phrase, Tempus Fugit, or “Time Flies,” in English. It’s a pretty common phrase, one I’m very familiar with; it encourages us to make the most of our time here, and to focus on the present moment. Which are two things I’ve been striving towards for quite some time.

The phrase first appears as Fugit Irreparabile Tempus, on line 284 in Book Three of Virgil’s Georgics, written around 35 BCE. But I am more familiar with the ancient Stoics view on the topic.

Marcus Aurelius reminded himself often in his own journal, “You could leave life right now, let that determine what you say and do and think.” & “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

Seneca, the most prolific of the Stoic writers, wrote extensively on the fleetness of time, “It’s not that we have a short time to live but that we waste most of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it…Life is long if you know how to use it.”

The message is clear— Time flies by because we are wasteful of it, because we place too much value in the past and the future, forgetting that the present moment is all we really ever have.

Seneca tells us to look at the problems that make our life seem to pass by too quickly, like ambition and vice; as well as the fact that we so freely give of our time to others. In his treatise On The Shortness of Life, he argues that we seem to have only lived a short time because we’ve filled our lives with business and stress. He counsels us to instead, work towards meaningful goals and things that provide enjoyment in life.

Time doesn’t fly when you’re having fun, it flies by when you’re not paying attention. When we are fully present in each fleeting moment, time almost stands still. And if you’re paying attention, those moments are virtually endless. That is how you truly live, the amount of time is irrelevant. By acknowledging the impermanence of time, we are encouraged to make the most of our lives, and focus on virtue, self-control, and living in accordance with nature.

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow is the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” -Bil Kean.

I am full of gratitude for this day, for my health and my family. I am thankful for the progress I’ve made in the past year. As Zeno says, “Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.” So I will continue to be mindful of the time that I have here on this earth. I will continue to write every day because that’s the gift I’ve been given, and what better way to honor the Creator than to use the gifts that we were blessed with. I will continue to be fully present when I’m with my loved ones. They deserve my full attention, and my time is more valuable when it’s shared with them. I’m going to get all I can from this present 🎁

Tempus Fugit.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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