"Time," says the proverb, "is money". This means that every moment well-spent may put some money into our pockets.
谚语说:“时间就是金钱。”这句话的意思是,一时片刻只要用得有效,都会让我们的口袋增添一些钱。
If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. Let those, who think nothing of wasting time, remember this.
Our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life.
But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day or an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Our life is a brief span measuring some seventy or eighty years in all.
But nearly one third of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives.
Now if all these years were to be deducted from the term over which our life extends, we shall find about twenty or thirty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly wastea single moment of his life.
All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our capacities.
If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages.
Man’s youth is a wonderful thing: it is so full of anguish and of magic and he never comes to know it as it is, until it has gone from him forever. It is the thing he cannot bear to lose, it is the thing whose passing he watches with infinite sorrow and regret, it is the thing whose loss with a sad and secret joy, the thing he would never willingly relive again, could it be restored to him by any magic.
Why is this? The reason is that the strange and bitter miracle of life is nowhere else so evident as in our youth. And what is the essence of that strange and bitter miracle of life which we feel so poignant, so unutterable, with such a bitter pain and joy, when we are young? It is this: that being rich, we are so poor; that being mighty, we can yet have nothing; that seeing, breathig, smelling, tasting all around us the impossible wealth and glory of this earth, feeling with an intolerable certitude that the whole structure of the enchanted life – the most fortunate, wealthy, good, and happy life that any man has ever known – is ours – is ours at once, immediately and forever, the moment that we choose to take a step, or stretch a hand, or say a word- we yet know that we can really keep, hold, take, and possess forever- nothing. All passes; nothing lasts: the moment that we put our hand upon it , it melts away like smoke, is gone forever, and the snake is eating at our heart again; we see then what we are and what our lives must come to.
A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing. He hurls the great shoulder of his strength forever against phantasmal barriers, he is a wave whose power explodes in lost mid – oceans under timeless skies, here-aches out to grip a fume of painted smoke, he wants all, feels the thirst and power foreverything, and finally gets nothing. In the end, he is destroyed by his own strength, devoured by his own hunger, impoverished by his own wealth. Thoughtless of money or the accumulation of material possessions, he is none the less defeated in the end by his own greed a greed that makes the avarice of King Midas seem paltry by comparison.
And that is the reason why, when youth is gone, every man will look back upon that period of his life with infinite sorrow and regret. It is the bitter sorrow and regret of a man who knows that once he had a great talent and wasted it , of a man who knows that once he had a great treasure and got nothing from it , of a man who knows that he had strength enough for everything and never used it.
"Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come." - Unknown
“一定要记住,你目前的处境并非你的最终目标,最好的日子终将到来。”——匿名
If your life isn't where you want it to be, change it. It's what successful people have done for thousands of years. You may currently be struggling and frustrated with your life but it's not going to stay like this forever, that is, unless you don't do anything to change it.
The best time of your life may still be ahead of you but it won't just magically show up, you have to create it. It's in your power to create whatever future you want for your life. Even if your best days are truly behind you, you can still have plenty of great days ahead of you if you decide to make it so.
Instead of letting circumstances control and defeat you, use them to push you into action so that you can change your present situation. Bad times aren't going to last forever but if you want more great times ahead of you instead of just good times, it's time to start doing things that will make that a reality… it's time to work toward your ideal destination.