Worth

Our universe's sole currency is time. And everything we do and everything we are molds time in just four ways: giving, making, killing, taking. We translate time into different currencies, names like money, love, legacy, effort. But those codes distort our behaviors as we diminish the value of time, and give it away without thinking, steal it without thinking, kill it without thinking. In the hopes of acceptance and belonging, we trip over ourselves to prioritize the clocks running in other people, and take a while to notice when the hours we shower aren't cherished, but instead discarded like leaflets given out on the streets. Taken, yes, but disinterestedly so, and soon to be littered. The terrifying reality that time is all we have begun a shrill ringing in my ears, the tick tocks an incessant, thunderous waterfall. I pulled myself away, and have entered the discipline of respecting my time. Mastering the art of time makers, and learning the tells of time stealers. Judging better what hours I should offer, and fighting the waste of sand in our hourglasses.

Time: a temptress both sly and shy. Overstays her welcome when we're full, but gone beyond reach when we're begging for more.