Time is weird. Everyone thinks they know what it is, right up until the moment they attempt to define it and explain it. Many of the greatest thinkers in history have tackled the challenge and failed to find a satisfying answer. Regardless of what time is, however, and aside from philosophical mind games, we would all do well to reflect on how we think about time and how that perception effects our lives. We all need to pay attention to the here and now, of course, but I believe that it’s helpful to occasionally pause and reflect on how brief our turn on the merry-go-round really is.

It may be difficult to accept, but from the perspective of geologic time, the Cayman Islands were under water mere seconds ago. Think about that, a mere moment ago our islands did not exist. They were nothing more than submerged seamounts. A moment or two from now, they will again be submerged. Further down the road, our entire planet will be scorched and destroyed by the death spasms of the Sun. Centuries, millennia, and even millions of years are not the distant concepts of time we tend to think of them as.

I can walk on Seven Mile Beach and hold the work of a million years in my hand simply by reaching down and picking up sand. Within my DNA, and yours, are the echoes of more than three billion years of life.

A simple coconut tree is one link in an unbroken chain of life stretching back to life’s very beginning. We live in the reality of deep time, whether we choose to recognize it or not.

So what? If my life or yours is less than 100 years, then who cares about thousands and millions of years? The point is that having a sense of how old the Earth and the universe are gives greater perspective on one’s own experiences, something I believe to be healthy.

Thinking about the big picture can also give us sharper focus on matters closer to home. For example, a very practical area were improved time perspective counts is long-term planning by government and businesses. Don’t you wish that politicians, developers, and business owners were able to see a time horizon that stretched 50 or 100 years forward, rather than the two, three, or five year horizon they all seem limited to? It’s one of the most crippling problems that plague political leadership throughout the world. Imagine if Cayman’s leaders of 50 or 60 years ago had laid out plans for the Cayman Islands with eye toward the 21st century.

Where might we be today? What might our islands look like today if they had cared as much for the future as they did the present? Education, sewage, crime, the economy, the arts, conservation, are all examples of things that require long-range planning and when it is absent, problems are guaranteed.

In fairness, it is only human to think short term. Scientists have revealed that our brains struggle to defer gratification and resist short-term rewards. Why do today what can put off until tomorrow, should be the official motto of humankind. We are childlike in the way we view time and our responsibilities to the future.

But that doesn’t mean we have to surrender to this weakness. By acknowledging it and then working to overcome it, we can adopt a more mature attitude toward time.

I think it’s time we did.