What Takes Our Time…?

To quote again from Carlyle: “Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.”

In this day and season of many pressures, we frequently feel we ought to do more than we reasonable can. We feel both the shortness of time and the magnitude of our tasks. We think of knowledge we wish we had acquired, of talents we wish we had improved, of service we wish we had given, of things we wish were ready, of work we wish we had behind us⎯and no matter how much we do each day, we frequently feel ourselves frustrated, and frequently spread ourselves so thin that we fail to be fully effective.

We intend so much, but get caught in the mechanics of living, in the routine, in the daily detail, some of which is exceedingly essential and some of which is much less so. But no matter how much we do or fail to do, we must sometimes arrive at an awareness that we will always have to choose what we will permit to take our time. This is a matter of daily, of hourly, decision: what is most important, what to give first place⎯and what should be secondary.

On this point James Bryce had this to say a half century ago: “If thoroughness is a virtue to be cultivated, still more is time a thing to be saved. The old maxim, ‘Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well,’ is less true than it seems, and has led may people into a lamentable waste of time. Many things are worth doing if you can do them passably well with a little time and effort, which are not worth doing thoroughly if so to do them requires much time and effort. Time is a measure of everything in life, and every kind of work ought to be adjusted to it. One of the commonest mistakes we all make is spending ourselves on things whose value is below the value of the time they require . . .”

It isn’t the feverish pace nor the sudden impulse that is most effective, nor the boastful biting off of what is too big. It is the steady purpose, the quiet conscience, the doing of duty, the finishing, the enduring, the seeing things through, the thoughtful quiet consistency⎯always with an awareness that among life’s most important decisions is what we permit to take our time⎯”for which,” said William Penn, “God will certainly reckon . . . with us, when Time shall be no more.”