Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and

Hear, O seeker, the voice of the poet Carl Sandburg, who uttered this truth for the ages: “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” This saying is not the language of numbers, nor the speech of merchants, but the eternal wisdom of existence clothed in simple words. For every soul is born with a purse that holds but one currency: time. Unlike gold, it cannot be mined. Unlike silver, it cannot be borrowed. Unlike kingdoms, it cannot be inherited. Once spent, it is gone forever, never to return.

The ancients knew this, though they named it differently. The Greeks spoke of Chronos, devourer of all, who even swallowed his own children. The Romans carved in stone the words tempus fugit—“time flies.” And the prophets of the East taught that life passes like a river, never flowing the same water twice. Sandburg’s words are an echo of this eternal truth: to waste time is to squander the only treasure that is truly ours.

But hear also the warning: “Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” For many will come, eager to take what you have. Some will demand it with chains of duty, others with soft persuasion, others still with the glitter of false promises. Consider the tale of Vincent van Gogh. He gave his days not to the demands of society, nor to the approval of critics, but to the burning of his own inner vision. Though he died poor, he spent his coin of time upon his art, and that coin became a legacy richer than empires. Had he allowed others to direct his hours, his canvases would never have lived, and the world would have been poorer for it.

Likewise, think of those who did not guard their time. There are men who labored endlessly in fields not their own, giving years to causes that bore no fruit in their hearts. They obeyed the commands of others, and when the end came, they looked back upon empty purses, their coin of life spent on the dreams of another. Such is the tragedy of the unguarded soul.

Yet there is no need for despair, for the teaching is also a call to power. Each day the sun rises, and with it comes a fresh portion of time—a coin placed into your hand. You may choose to waste it in idleness, or to invest it in the building of something lasting: a craft, a friendship, a dream, or a life of service. The choice is always yours, though the years are limited. The wise know this, and therefore they spend deliberately, with care and vision.

The lesson is clear: guard your time as you would your most precious treasure. Ask yourself each dawn, Where shall I place my coin today? Will it be spent in pursuit of wisdom? In love for family? In service to the weary? Or shall it slip silently into the hands of others, leaving you with nothing? He who answers this question each day lives not by accident, but by purpose.

Therefore, O listener, take action: set aside the trivial, silence the voices that pull you from your path, and choose with courage how you will invest your hours. Let your coin of life not be stolen, nor squandered, but spent with honor. In this way, when your purse at last runs empty, you will not weep for wasted days, but rejoice, for every coin was cast into the service of your true calling.