By Lacey Gunter
I was reading a nonfiction picture book to my daughter last night about energy. It was a really cool book that talked about the different types and sources of energy, written in a way that even a young child could comprehend. Part of the book explained that much of the energy we use originates from the sun. For all intents and purposes, we could consider the sun as an infinite source of energy.
All that thinking about renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy got me thinking about time. Don't you wish time was like energy? If we were just creative enough or inventive enough, we could find renewable sources of it. Or we could find nuggets of time hidden around in variety of ways just waiting for us to collect and store, ready to be used when we need it.
Ah, time is such a fickle resource. So easily wasted and yet so sparse and precious. We always talk about time as the great equalizer. Everyone is allotted the same amount, only 24 hours a day. And yet, what some people are able to accomplish within those 24 hours seems anything but equal.
I've attended writing workshops and conferences and read plenty of writing blogs. All of them telling you what it takes to be a successful writer. I look at that big laundry list and scratch my head and say, how do you do it? How can one find the time to do it all and still be a good wife and mother? Then I participate in critique groups and look at the accomplishments and duties of the other women there, most of them with more children than me, and again I wonder how they do it. Where do they find the time?
It is probably no different with me. I am sure at least one other person has looked from the outside and wondered how I have been able to accomplish the things I have done in the time I have had to do them. But it still seems like there is never enough time to accomplish all the wonderful things we desire to do.
Coming back to the book I read my daughter last night about energy and the sun and all the musing about time, something occurred to me. As latter day saints, we are given quite a different perspective on time. We existed long before we experienced this earth life and we will continue to exist long after we leave here. Like the seemingly infinite energy resources of the sun, we believe time is infinite too. Imagine that. All our feelings of being rushed and not having enough time, and yet it stretches out before us in a never ending abundance, if only we can be patient enough to wait for it.
It kind of puts a new perspective on things, doesn't it? I can be a piano virtuoso, quantum physicist, aerial stunt pilot and master gardener in the next millennia. For now I will just try to be content with laying down the ground work, becoming a good human being, improving my talents and trying the best I can in whatever situation I am put in. The rest will surely come. All in due time.
I was reading a nonfiction picture book to my daughter last night about energy. It was a really cool book that talked about the different types and sources of energy, written in a way that even a young child could comprehend. Part of the book explained that much of the energy we use originates from the sun. For all intents and purposes, we could consider the sun as an infinite source of energy.
All that thinking about renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy got me thinking about time. Don't you wish time was like energy? If we were just creative enough or inventive enough, we could find renewable sources of it. Or we could find nuggets of time hidden around in variety of ways just waiting for us to collect and store, ready to be used when we need it.
Ah, time is such a fickle resource. So easily wasted and yet so sparse and precious. We always talk about time as the great equalizer. Everyone is allotted the same amount, only 24 hours a day. And yet, what some people are able to accomplish within those 24 hours seems anything but equal.
I've attended writing workshops and conferences and read plenty of writing blogs. All of them telling you what it takes to be a successful writer. I look at that big laundry list and scratch my head and say, how do you do it? How can one find the time to do it all and still be a good wife and mother? Then I participate in critique groups and look at the accomplishments and duties of the other women there, most of them with more children than me, and again I wonder how they do it. Where do they find the time?
It is probably no different with me. I am sure at least one other person has looked from the outside and wondered how I have been able to accomplish the things I have done in the time I have had to do them. But it still seems like there is never enough time to accomplish all the wonderful things we desire to do.
Coming back to the book I read my daughter last night about energy and the sun and all the musing about time, something occurred to me. As latter day saints, we are given quite a different perspective on time. We existed long before we experienced this earth life and we will continue to exist long after we leave here. Like the seemingly infinite energy resources of the sun, we believe time is infinite too. Imagine that. All our feelings of being rushed and not having enough time, and yet it stretches out before us in a never ending abundance, if only we can be patient enough to wait for it.
It kind of puts a new perspective on things, doesn't it? I can be a piano virtuoso, quantum physicist, aerial stunt pilot and master gardener in the next millennia. For now I will just try to be content with laying down the ground work, becoming a good human being, improving my talents and trying the best I can in whatever situation I am put in. The rest will surely come. All in due time.
