It is difficult to weigh the value of time. Time will not be measured on scales. A digital scale isn’t sensitive enough to quantify the preciousness of time. All of time could pass without any measure of its value. How can the future be calculated? How can the value be calculated? There are tables to measure appreciation, depreciation, life expectancy and formulas to figure out how much insurance is required based on some obscure calculation of age and time. But, as everyone knows time is relative, its weight and value ever changing.

Most people give the past a way too much power. An individual’s identitiy is often rooted in the past and the perception of the past. Therapists confront the weight of the past everyday when working with adults that still suffer from the blows of childhood. A man settles for a factory job pushing metal down a ramp because he heard a million times how he was good for nothing. Those words are now is his own inner voice. An adult coming from poverty may spend his life trying to make enough money to feel secure, but no amount will ever be enough. A child beaten may become an adult afraid, or worse an abuser as well. The weight of the past can pull someone down and squeeze the experience of living right out of them.

The future holds a similar type of weight, a weight of potential. Many people go through their days saving and planning so that someday they can take that trip, buy that house, have those babies, or retire to a better life. Many life choices are a calculated hedge against potential threats. Too many people shelve their joy in life expecting to get it at some undesignated point between now and death. Lives are wasted in an attempt to build security and prevent unknown and imagined calamities.

The weight of the past, the focus on the future squashes the experience of the present into a small pellet, like something a mouse might leave by the molding in the kitchen. The past is done and the future unknown. The only time that is experienced is the one that in now. The only thing that is real is the moment that is right now. It doesn’t mean that the past is forgotten and the future treated like an unwelcome guest about to arrive. The past informs us and helps us live fully in the moment that is happening now. The scar on the hand from touching the hot stove reminds us that stoves can be hot. The dream of building a home in the mountains might determine the path we take in life. But decisions happen now, the experience of being alive can only happen now. The outcome of those choices may lead to a completely different experience than the one that was planned. But the weight of time can be measured in every breath and every exhale.

The value of time is determined not by months and years but by awareness and presence.