Opinion | All we have is time

I write this column with the understanding of how cliche it is that I am hypothesizing about the relativity and concept of time as not only a communications major, but a second-semester senior. Regardless, I feel as though this column can highlight that while institutions, societal norms and twists of fate confine our time in school, at a job or with our loved ones, all time ever does is continue on. How you spend it matters. 

Our lives seem to be organized in terms and conditions of time — after 18 years, you become an adult and can be tried in a court of law as such. After four years, you earn a bachelor’s degree and use it to further your education or pursue your career. After two years, it’s considered acceptable to move on from your first job, and so on. These constraints typically come with accompanying expectations — when you become an adult, you’re supposed to know how to behave in our society. When you complete college, you’re supposed to have a better understanding of who you are and what you want to do with your life. When you finish your first job, you’re supposed to move on to a higher-paying, more specialized role. 

Realistically speaking, our lives exist and go on in spite of these “supposed tos” — people take years to get their degree, some stay at their first job for their entire life and I think we’ve all met individuals well beyond 18 years of age who don’t necessarily know how to behave, at least kindly, in society. Recognizing this is key to understanding why it’s important that you spend your time in the way you want, and accept that you must do so even if it comes at the cost of disappointment from others, judgment or internal feelings of inadequacy. 

This is not to say that you should immediately shirk all responsibility and wither away with the idea that lying around sedentarily is how you wish to pass your days. Instead, it’s more of a “play it as it lays” situation — it’s understanding that we exist in a society and time period in which immediacy is favored, and many hold the idea that doing something faster means doing it better. Accepting that we don’t have to start a revolution and subvert these ingrained norms in our society while simultaneously understanding that we don’t have to hold ourselves to these standards is what I consider to be the first step in deciding how you want to spend your time. 

When you start to think beyond what you should do, what your parents want you to do and what many others in your situation would do, you take the first step in finding out who you really are. Accepting your situation for what it is and adjusting accordingly, and aligning with your own values instead of everyone else’s, is how you figure out what you truly want out of the time you’re given. Doing so is by no means easy — one challenge being that social media — an integral part of many’s daily routines — allows for hundreds of pieces of content to get thrown at you, many showing off luxury lifestyles, the newest gadget that will change your life, what you should read, watch, eat next — but not doing so is a far more dangerous alternative. 

It’s OK to take the time to figure out what you value in life and how you want to leverage your abilities, skills and experiences as you move forward, whether that be on an unconventional path or not. It is not OK to lose sight of yourself by blindly following a routine set for you by a society you just so happen to exist in. It seems like such a waste to go day in and day out fulfilling commitments you hypothetically don’t care about for the sake of — speaking from experience here — dinner table conversation with relatives that don’t even know how old I am. 

How we spend our days translates to how we spend our lives. Some of us are born with different abilities, some into privilege and others not — some of us get a name at birth, others make their own. Some of us will make it past our 90s, others might not have such luck. Regardless of the circumstances in which we come to exist, we all get a set amount of time to live our lives and spend our days. We all have the potential to create our own happiness in our own respective circumstances. For all of us, all we have is time. 

Tessa Powers spends her days with friends, a fiction novel, crossword puzzles, and when she’s lucky, with her family. Feel free to send your opinions to tep49@pitt.edu. Maybe she’ll respond, maybe she won’t.