The Reality of Borrowed Time.
I don’t know if you have ever borrowed anything. When you use it, does it ever feel like it is yours even if you have it for over 5 years? When you are using it and have probably gotten so used to it that a false ownership feeling starts developing, it is the time when the owner may come for his/her belongings.
This means that however long you may use or own a borrowed item, it may never be yours. As long as ‘borrow’ is tagged to the item, one lives in a state of relinquishing the item to the owner any time he/she may come for it.
It thus calls that one takes maximum care of the borrowed thing such that when the owner comes back for it, they may find it in good order and shape. Secondly, with the knowledge of borrowing at the back of the borrower’s mind, it calls that he/she maximally draws value from the borrowed item before the borrowed time lapses.
I am writing this after an incident that happened to me yesterday on the 28th of March 2022. At the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi, I was walking at the CBD to go pick up an item at the Ambassador place at about 9 a.m.
While walking along Tom Mboya Street, behind the National Achieves, I tipped, for that is the best explanation I can give although I felt like someone caused it, and I fell very badly. I injured my right hand and incurred damage to my phone(s).
Now, that is no big deal so to say. The way and where I fell taught me the need to understand that we are living on borrowed time in this world. After tipping, I fell right in between vehicles on the road. The oncoming vehicle was standing at the time of my fall and the one in front was reversing.
It was the shouts of the people that helped the reversing bus from injuring or even running over me. The driver who was focused on the distance between him and the bus standing behind him couldn’t have noticed a small person lying dangerously right behind him.
When I stood and recollected myself and went to wash my wounds and get some first aid, the reality hit me. I realized that we need to understand that the clock of our lives may stop to tick at any single moment.
We ought to understand that our life on this earth is but on a borrowed timescale and we thus need to create maximum value out of every opportunity that comes our way. We need to understand that our time is what we have now and make the best of it. We can never tell of the next moment because as with a borrowed item, the owner may come for it any time.
There is a popular saying among my people that the path/way doesn’t tell the person walking or travelling on it what awaits him or her ahead. If the way were to tell the traveller what awaits them ahead, most of them would not die of road accidents for example because you could know well in advance that an accident is going to occur and thus avoid using that road.
That is the same thing with death. If we knew when, where and how our deaths would occur, we would certainly avoid it. But now that we don’t, we thus live with the knowledge at the back of our minds that it is but borrowed time we are having on a platter.
So, make the best of the moment called now, draw maximum value for today, and give your very best because you don’t know when your life will be required of thee. Be good to all people, help those in need, love all even the unlovable and let integrity define what your life is, all the time.
When our borrowed time elapses, we can be glad that we were borrowed this time to be here at such a time as this and that we indeed made the best of it.
