Closing Curtains and Commencements

As each season closes to be followed by each successive season, we become aware that life is a series of scenes separated by closing curtains and commencements. Sometimes these commencements are formally obvious, as on academic occasions, but sometimes we step almost imperceptibly from scene to scene.

The hours move; the days pass; and the years add up, no matter what part we are performing; and the only part we play in time’s passing is the purpose to which we put it. We can waste it or use it well. We can fill it full or leave it empty and idle. We can use it for the right things or use it for the wrong things ⎯ but we can’t “save” time, for it always passes at its own pace.

Sometimes we let the best years for practice and preparation slip by. Perhaps most of us who are older have realized later in life that some things would have been much easier if we had done them when we were younger, for with increasing years and increasing responsibilities more and more we are crowded into living life with less and less time for preparing to live. And it can be difficult and discouraging to try to play a part for which we have neglected to prepare.

We say this not so much for us who are older but mostly for you who are younger. We say it because in looking back we can sometimes see how much time we wasted in doing things that didn’t mean much, and how much of what we have yet to do could have been done easier earlier. (And in making our choices we must remember all along the way that if we choose to do some things, we choose in effect to pass up other things because here in life as we now know it, time is too short to do everything.)

Time is the very essence of all our opportunities, and we had better do earlier the things that are easier to do earlier, if we would avoid living our lives just a little too late.