Growing up, I often heard my elders say, “Time is like a sword. If you don’t cut it, it will cut you.” It was one of the earliest lessons I absorbed about time—that it was something sharp, something dangerous, something to master before it mastered me.
I didn’t fully understand it then, but I took it to heart. I became obsessed with punctuality. In junior high, I lined up every morning with military precision. I was running the broadcasting schedule, responsible for morning news and entertainment. I had to be on time—not just for myself, but for an entire system that depended on it.
By high school, I moved to the U.S. to live with my father, I entered a new dimension of time. The hustle of New York City had no patience for hesitation. Here, seconds mattered as much as minutes. Time wasn’t just something you managed—it was something you sold.
I was paid by the hour. It was one of the most transformative realizations of my life. Back in Egypt, no one ever spoke about time in hours. Salaries were monthly, days stretched in fluid rhythms. But in New York, time had a price tag.
Time as a Cultural Currency
I began to see how different societies measured time. In the U.S., time was money, and every second had a purpose. In other parts of the world, time was a suggestion rather than a measurement.
We joke about Egyptian time, Italian time, Indian time—these cultural quirks where schedules exist loosely, flexibly, bending to the rhythm of human interaction. It wasn’t laziness. It was just a different understanding of time’s role in life.
In these cultures, time is meant to be lived, not counted. Meetings don’t start on the dot because conversations spill over. Dinners last longer because connection matters more than precision. The most common feature of these places is that no one calculates the exact worth of their personal or professional time by the hour.
I found myself caught between these two worlds. One told me that every second mattered. The other told me that time could stretch, bend, and expand.
Sports: A Reflection of Our Relationship with Time
Even in sports, we see this contrast.
In the U.S., sports revolve around precision, down to the last fraction of a second. The clock stops for every interruption. Games are decided in the final half-second. A shot at the buzzer, a touchdown at 0:01, a car crossing the finish line by milliseconds.
In contrast, soccer—a sport loved by the world but never fully embraced by the U.S.—follows a different logic. No one is counting seconds in soccer except for the referees. The game flows, time moves as part of the match, and only at the end do you learn how much extra time has been added.
Two ways of understanding time:
⏳ One sees it as rigid, absolute, something to be controlled.
⚽ The other sees it as fluid, unfolding, something to experience.
Which one is right?
The Balance Between Structure and Flow
Moving between these two perceptions of time has been one of the great paradoxes of my life. I understand the value of a second—how in certain contexts, precision is everything. But I also understand that not everything worth living for can be scheduled.
Time is both a currency and a gift. It must be managed, but it must also be lived.
There is a balance to be found. Some moments require absolute timing, discipline, and precision. Others require us to forget the clock and be present. The key is knowing when to measure time and when to let it flow.
Because in the end, whether we control time or it controls us depends on how we choose to engage with it.
Final Thought
🕰️ Do you live life by the clock, or do you let time unfold naturally?
⚖️ Have you struggled with balancing punctuality and presence?
📢 Let’s start the conversation—drop your thoughts in the comments below.
