A Rationalization

In case you can't tell from my posts or don’t know me well enough, I’m a worrier. I like to worry. I have to worry, otherwise I worry that I’m forgetting something important. If it’s not money (how can I afford to try those tapas tonight or to take the bus to the ocean or to go to the top of the Giralda?), it’s something else (will we make the bus? Are we using our time well enough? Are we having fun yet?!?).

However, as Uncle Screwtape reminds us, “man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.” And, as another Wise man once said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”

I like the way our language shapes how we think about things. There is an embedded metaphor in the way English-speakers talk about time as if it were money: you spend, waste, and borrow time. Is it worth your while? Budget your time profitably. We even say it outright: “Time is money.”

But neither one is mine: time or money. They are gifts and I will spend them as best I can. Responsibility will undoubtedly be an element in my decisions, but so too will be my impetuousness (the part of me that has a fondness for purple shoes). Hopefully. something like a balance will result.

So long, and thanks for playing “Rationalize that Eurotrip!” with me.


P.S. I did go to the beach today.