With today marking the beginning of daylight saving time, our Scouter’s Minute will be focusing on one of our most valuable resources each of us has - time.

Temporal measurements of time take two distinct forms. The calendar and the clock. Eventually in a 24 hour period, the second hand of the clock will click 86,400 times to make up one day on the calendar. It seems like a lot of time when you break it down to such a large number as 86,000. But, you eventually start to use up seconds throughout the day when all of a sudden one hour (which is 3,600 seconds) has passed by. What have you accomplished during those 3,600 seconds? Well, that is totally up to you.

William Penn, in the Fruits of Solitude wrote, “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” C.S. Lewis said, “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour…”. In Jr High my Spanish teacher had a sign up by the clock in the classroom that said, “Time is passing… are you?”

Throughout history, time has always been there for every event. In Greek mythology we are introduced to Chronos, or Father Time. Depending on the culture, the concept of time is measured by a revolving cycle or a linear and directional measurement. In Western philosophy we start to study the philosophy of space and time. And then there is Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity… but that’s getting a little too “heavy” for me.

Time is a huge part of our life and culture. Pop culture loves it. Take a look at just a handful of movies or books that involve time and time travel.

• Back to the Future

• Wrinkle in Time

• The Tomorrow War

• Land of the Lost

• Planet of the Apes

• The Time Machine

• Flight of the Navigator

• Interstellar

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

• Clockstoppers

• Avengers Endgame

• Superman

• Star Trek

• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

The list could go on and on.

Each one of us has the same amount of time available in a 24 hour period. What we do with this given time is up to us individually. Yes, a portion of this time we need to be sleeping. But again, how much sleep you personally get is up to you. I suggest the recommended 8 - 9 hours because being a sleepy and grumpy scout is no fun for anyone. When the day starts, what items do you want to accomplish during the day? Do you have a list of items to start with? Do you have a project or merit badge that needs to be completed that you have been putting off? Do you have homework that is sitting in your backpack that still needs to be completed before Monday? The point I’m trying to get across is that there is always something that needs to be done. Many times we put off these things that need to be done and we soon realize that we are almost out of time. One of the merit badges that I teach is Personal Management. This merit badge helps us not only understand the methods of budgeting our money or project management, but how we can budget our time. Between rank advancements, there is a period of time that needs to happen before we can earn our next rank. For most of us. We have designated events throughout the day like school or work that must be held at specific hours.

As you go through your day, budget time for those things that you value or that need to be completed. This could be spending time with family, reading a good book, starting or finishing a project or doing that pesky homework. Whatever takes your time, do it well and be thrifty with your time because the seconds on the clock will always continue to tick away.