Time arrives bearing opportunity — freely given — and it must be used. If left unused, it shall not return. The days of our childhood have passed and come back no more. Youth, too, has gone its way. Old age has now arrived and shall not turn back.
This is what is entrusted to you: that whatever you wish to do, do it without delay. This present moment brings with it the opportunity to study, the opportunity to engage in wholesome pursuits, the opportunity for all that is good — offered freely, without cost. Yet it comes with conditions:
1. Opportunity does not return. Time and tide wait for no one and turn back for none.
2. Moreover, time brings with it the gift of ageing — whether one makes use of time or not, old age must be received all the same. And so, the skin grows thin, the flesh grows loose, in due and natural succession. Ageing is accompanied, in the end, by the gift of death. If one is given time and does not make use of it, one incurs a profound loss. And should one use it wrongly, the loss becomes all the heavier still.
April 30th, 2014
