There are people in your life for a season, a reason, or a life time. He was in my life for a reason my freshman year of college. I loved him and he broke my heart. However, I am so glad that I met him. I was studying for calculus, a course I never should have taken as an English major. I mentioned flippantly that I would promptly forget everything soon after the test. The "cool" kids in high school had said that, so I thought I would too, not that I had ever been cool. Boy did that backfire on me. He told me that I should never use my time to do something only to forget it. I would be wasting time that way. Who knew if I would need that information later on? Even if I would never use it again--like I have never used calculus since--I shouldn't use my time, time that I will never get back, in a wasteful manner. The way he said it made every second sound precious.

Today, as a teacher, I try to impart that to my students. They still don't understand exactly what it means, but if I repeat it every week for a year, maybe it will stick with them. Perhaps it is also partially why I'm always so busy: every minute is precious to me. I think my biggest anxiety about death is that I don't want to die thinking that I had wasted my time.