Official poster for the 2011 movie, In Time, starring Justin Timberlake

In Time (2011)

There is a very intriguing movie called In Time starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The movie takes place in the the future where everybody has been genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. However, once they turn 25, they only get 1 more year to live. That is, unless they get more time.

You see, 
there was no such thing as money. Currency was time. They got paid with time, bought things with time, made deals for time, and even committed crimes to get more time. For example, if they wanted to catch the bus, it might cost them an hour of time. If they went to a restaurant, it might cost a few hours of time to get a burger and fries. Everything cost time.

Instead of wallets, the amount of time that they had remaining was displayed on their forearms in the form of a timer counting down. If the timer got to 0, the person's time was up, and they dropped dead. 

As the movie progressed, you discover that "rich" people had accumulated centuries of time, basically making them immortal. Because they had so much time, they wasted it frivolously on drinking and gambling. However, those who were not in the upper class always lived racing against time. They had to work, beg, borrow, or even steal enough time just to make it through the day. But, if you couldn’t accumulate more, you would drop dead when your time expired.

I found myself thinking, what if life was really like that? Would it change the way we view and handle time? But then it hit me, that movie actually depicts time in a truthful manner. Time is a resource. It’s a commodity. It really is a currency. The major difference is that we can't earn more time. We can't accumulate it. Once it's gone, it's gone. 

Lillian Dickson said, "Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once." Well, you can replace the word life with time if you want. And the question is, how are you spending your time? 

Don't waste time. Use it wisely. After all, at the end of the day, you can only spend it once.

Time is Moving. The question is, are you?

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