TEN MINUTES
In ten minutes I’ll be ten minutes older than I am right now. What will I have to show for my ten minutes? Who will I show it to?
In ten minutes I can wash and dry my coffee pot, play a game of solitaire, drive up to the store for a candy bar, dance Chopin’s Minute Waltz ten times, rack up about forty dollars of a lawyer’s time, do half a session of aerobic exercise, or make an omelet. In other words, I can’t really do anything of real consequence.
I can’t build a skyscraper, father a child, earn a university degree, write a novel, grow sunflowers, rebuild an engine, climb Mt. Everest, send an astronaut to the moon, broker a peace treaty in the Middle East, or end world hunger. Those things take longer — much longer.
There’s not really a lot I can do in ten minutes. Or is there?
In ten minutes I can meet someone new, setting into motion the wheels of love which eventually turn into marriage and begin a family with our first child. Family life could provide the setting to share in activities, like working the backyard soil into a garden. We could grow sunflowers, azalea bushes, and perhaps even vegetables. As a hobby, I could buy a classic car to restore and rebuild its engine. I might even take up the challenge of mountain climbing and attempt to scale Mt. Everest. All these experiences provide material for writing a novel.
I can practice a calculus problem in ten minutes, thereby increasing my mastery of mathematics on the road to earning a university degree. Plugging away at my studies can strengthen my ability to calculate trajectories, velocities, gravitational pull, and other parameters necessary to send astronauts into space. I could also apply mathematical principles toward determining angles, stress points, weight ratios, and other factors needed to build skyscrapers.
Instead of pursuing a technical degree, my interests may lie more in public service. By studying history, political science, and other disciplines related more toward working with people, perhaps I’ll become an ambassador sent to trouble spots as a mediator. The problems facing the Middle East can certainly use someone to help settle differences. If humanitarian endeavors or more to my liking, then a career helping to bring food into needy areas and attacking world hunger is a possibility.
In ten minutes time I can open the door for someone who has arms full of groceries, pick up a small child after the tot tumbles to the ground, hold an elevator for someone in a wheel chair, and smile at a senior citizen sitting alone on a park bench. Any of those people may pay forward that simple kindness to others, who in turn pay it forward until kindness surges across the world like a wave.
Life proceeds in moments, not in grand events. It’s the small actions which carry us through each minute and interact with the next. We determine what kind of interaction it will be.
I’m ten minutes older than I was ten minutes before. You are, too.
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