“Where do you see yourself ten years from now?” My substitute teacher addressed me when our group kept interrupting the class. As any other student would, I took the question in terms of what I want to do with my life. “Ten years from now is very long time, why not 10 days from now?” I was thinking. Almost instantly, I panicked and felt the discomfort of speaking in front of the entire class. I started wrapping up my thought and still could not come up with my speech. I was literally buried deep into my own thought, but without any further delay, he then eased up the embarrassment: “It feels like it was yesterday that I was a student, but I am a teacher today.”

When I take a closer look at my old watch, the very first thing I notice: everything but the second hand is motionless. It keeps on moving forward and rarely get tired. It steadily rhymes my heart beat and keeps disrupting the silence restlessly. As I stick a little longer, I realize that it whirls all the way back to where it all began. It goes through that slow process just to repeat the same steps all over again as it reaches the top. It can easily fail to run from what is morally wrong, but can hardly run to what is totally right. Though it is a tiny part and doesn’t complete the watch, it plays the most vital role. Little does it know that it is as relevant as the watch itself. Equally important is the significant trail of numbers it also left behind as it retains its velocity to go through the same course again.

We all play a part in this journey called life and, unfortunately, this illustration represents the cycle of our lives. During our adolescence, we barely even know the true meaning behind anything. We rarely ever imagined that someone else could be a lot better at what we do. In secondary school, we believe that we know better, only to realize later that we had absolutely no clue, only to wish we have known back then what we know now. In the next stages of life, our perspective remains to be seen again differently as we grow wiser in knowledge. It reminds me that change is an inevitable part of our physical lives. Through our desperation for something, our one and only true need is revealed. Change, though it is lacked from above, is the line between what we know and what we will probably never know. Change is apparent and is only existed to us. It is welcomed only when necessary and positively expected, even when it can’t possibly be controlled. Through our weakness, we are strengthened. In our haziness, we are made strong. We learned not to rely on our own. The point is, we ought to use our time wisely to pursue our heavenly gifts and honor the one who breathes life into us.

Ephesians 5:15 “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.”