Time is the supreme double-edged sword: it grants insight and wisdom, yet at such an immense cost! Each minute, each second, time slowly poisons even the strongest of the strongest, yet it’s the antidote for advancement and progress. Time pollutes and ruins, yet it revolutionizes and amends. It is the ultimate paradox, a contradiction within a contradiction.

Time is the highest price we pay for life.

Time weakens our physical shell, for no shield can protect itself from aging. But without time, there wouldn’t be a need for a custodial armor. Time defeats kings, weathers down the tallest mountains, and even beasts cannot prevail against time. Yet, it seems, everyone has unconsciously accepted time will be our final obstacle, left triumphant since. But why there such a human need to cheat death? Shouldn’t we try to cheat time, for isn’t death just another side effect?

But time doesn’t just take, it also gives. It gives will to the weed in the cracks of the sidewalk to overcome the biting hails, the cat that’s always wandering around in the neighborhood for whatever reason to keep wandering, and the wailing infants as they take their first breath of life to continue struggling for air. Time gives countless opportunities and chances to thrive and prosper. For time, we treasure our very existence.

It’s a cycle everything within the universe must go through and possibly repeat over and over again indefinitely or perhaps only once. That is up to the heavens to decide. But it is our decision whether or not the cycle can be long and distinguished or short and meaningless. We can decide how profound of a footprint we leave behind as we journey forward: one so colossal that it will not vanish for years to come, or one so minor that it will forever be in oblivion from the spotlight. A gentle breeze of wind and dust called the Next Generation may just be the end of you. How do you want to be remembered? The girl that found the cure to cancer? The boy that solved world hunger? Or the one that spent half their lifetime in prison, only to be found dead the following day?

But to leave our impact, we must hurry, for time is a high-speed train that does not wait for anyone. Either you miss it or you don’t. The time train will stop by from the moment you wake up and drop you off when your mind leaves for the land of dreams. It’s up to you to decide where the stops will be.

Are you ready?