Emphatic Trifles…

The swift passing of a season is always sobering⎯for “Time,” said Benjamin Franklin, “is the stuff life is made of.”¹ And while time in the eternal sense is limitless, what we can now foresee passes swiftly. And yet we often splinter it away with less thought, less purpose, less accomplishment than time is entitled to.

“At times,” said Emerson, “the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles.”² It is true that other people splinter our lives into trifles it we let them, and often we ourselves do the same. Often we let our lives be cluttered with encumbrances⎯with bits and pieces and paraphernalia⎯with “emphatic trifles” as Emerson said. And while we don’t want to be slaves to unreasoning routine, we ought to recognize the waste when time is not well used⎯for “Time,” said Diogenes, “is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.”³

“Don’t waste time,” pleaded Arthur Brisbane, “Don’t waste it in idleness; don’t waste it in regretting the time already wasted; don’t waste it in dissipation; don’t waste it in resolutions a thousand time repeated, never to be carried out. Don’t waste your time. Use all of it. Sleep, work, rest ,think. Save part of the time of yesterday by saving part of the money earned yesterday…. The best of us have already wasted time enough…. Remember that however much time you have wasted already, you have time enough left [for some accomplishment and recovery] if you will use it… while life and time remain.”⁴

Passing and trivial things should not be allowed unduly to take us away from more productive pursuits, nor should we let others often distract us with trifles that take us away from our work. “At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles.”²