the time will pass anyway
“Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV.” — Morty
I recently got the chance to visit Ephesus, a sprawling city covering 500 acres that once housed over 100,000 people. It’s a pretty cool experience to be able to walk through a city and think about all the lives that were once lived, the laughter that once ran through the streets, the stories that were once told in now-ruined houses.
I imagine that this was once the New York or Paris of the ancient world. Now, it’s just a remnant of what once was.
Being a 20-something means there’s always somewhere to be, someone new to meet, some activity to try, something more I need to do. I feel like I need to stretch myself to my limits, whether that be socially or physically, to decide which random hobbies I like a bit more than the other random hobbies.
Yet even when I feel like I’m doing everything, I’ll still feel like I’m not doing enough. I’ll feel a sad twang in my stomach when a friend group has a dinner I wasn’t able to join, or when someone achieves a new PB on their run, or when a friend looks like they’re living an amazing life.
Even when I feel like I’ve achieved some new milestone, I’ll think that I’m only at square one and the path to success still stretches far into the distance. I’ll think to myself that I’m not working out enough, or I’m not earning enough, or I’m not investing my money enough, or I’m just doing terrible at experiencing life and all that it has to offer.
There’s an insidious feeling that time is running out, and that there’s not enough time left to get things right.
But maybe it’s worth asking — does anyone ever get it right?
Does anyone live a life where they make all the right steps, where they attend every invitation, where they do well in everything they try?
And if we’re asking questions, what is actually ‘right’? There are countless times when I came to a dinner and wished I was home instead, or I worked really hard to win something and felt empty afterwards.
The answer is that, outside from a very lucky few who may have been dealt the most fantastic hand and were born with the most luck in the world, it’s likely everyone who has ever lived and will ever live think that they’re doing something wrong.
Everyone misses out on something, everyone fails when they’ve tried their best, and everyone makes a misstep here and there.
Everyone gets the same amount of time in a day, and everyone will at one point in their life feel like it’s not enough.
But maybe the only thing we can do is do our best every single day. We show up, we try, and that’s all that matters. The outcome is secondary to the attempt. The best isn’t necessarily achieving everything we’ve ever dreamed of, or making all the right moves, or living a perfect life where everything goes our way.
Our best is whatever we’re able to be that day. Some days you thrive, some days you survive, some days you just exist.
In an article earlier this year, I wrote that time is finite and so one must make the best of their time — there’s enough time for some things, but not enough time for other things.
But as I sat in the theater of Ephesus, I thought about the civilization that once lived here, the thousands of interactions here, people with families and lovers, stories and personalities. I thought about how thousands of years later, paths that were once walked by kings and peasants alike, walls that once sheltered a family or an army, buildings that may have housed books or weapons, pictures etched into a stone by a child or a bored builder, all of them were still standing — but the people were long gone.
The fact is that the time will pass anyway. Time will pass us all.
One day, hundreds (or thousands if we’re lucky) of years from now, someone will mention our name for the last time. Someone will think of us for the last time. And then, any identifiable trace that we existed in the world will be gone. Maybe one of our notebooks, or an old printed photo from a photo album, or a book with our annotations will be found by a person who will have no idea who we are. But for all needs and purposes, any meaningful presence we had in this world will be gone forever.
And so, time is still finite. And I still believe that we have to make the best of our time. But I also believe there’s still enough time for everything.
There’s enough time to work hard. There’s enough time to reach a dream (if not all of our dreams). There’s enough time to fail. There’s enough time to fall in love for the first time. There’s enough time to fall in love with the wrong people. There’s enough time to fall in love with the right person. There’s enough time to build a family. There’s enough time to make a fool of yourself, and there’s enough time to redeem yourself. There’s enough time to make mistakes, and there’s enough time to right those wrongs. There’s enough time to meet new friends and enough time to work through problems with old ones. There’s enough time to travel, and there’s enough time to stay at home being useless. There’s enough time to spend with the ones still here and enough time to mourn those that aren’t. There’s enough time to dance aimlessly into the night, enough time to read sad poetry, enough time to laugh so hard that we forget what we were laughing at.
There’s only so much time left before we’re gone forever.
But you know what? I don’t want to worry so much about getting everything right. I don’t want to worry about whether I’m using all the time I have to the most optimal that it can be. I’d like to enjoy the time I have left.
It doesn’t matter if I’m doing everything right or if I’m doing everything wrong.
The time will pass anyway.
