Time is relative, and how we relate to time changes as we go through our lives, dependent upon our circumstances.

For the young, time either goes by too slowly or too quickly in relation to what’s going on in their lives. Time literally seems to drag if one is waiting for the bell to ring on the last day of school. And it flies by in an instant if one is finally spending a long-awaited day at Disneyland (for which the waiting FOR seemed incalculable before it arrived).

As we get older, time tends to spend itself too quickly most of the time. But as with the young, the speed by which our time seems to advance is also affected by circumstance.

For instance, I can remember putting numbers on our calendar in August a few years ago, counting the days until we would go to Maui for a long-saved-for ten year anniversary trip. I began the numbering at 143 days, and it seemed as if the very act of writing those numbers on the calendar made time stand still, if not stop completely. But once we arrived in Maui, our 10 days there went by in the blink of an eye, and before I even totally got over my jet lag, we were home. In fact, once we arrived Maui I knew the time would fly by, and so by the second day I was already mourning our departure, which was still eight days away. Know the feeling?

Having said all of that, the reality of time is that it DOES pass, and whether or not it seems to be ticking by slowly or at the speed of light ~ the moment a second passes it’s gone forever and cannot be returned to us. Time is a precious commodity, not to be wasted.

Now I may differ with some folks about what’s considered to be a “waste of time.” For instance, I don’t think staring out the window watching cardinals at the feeder is wasting time. Nor do I think watching television, going to a movie, or surfing the Internet is necessarily a waste of time. Something I do consider to be a waste of time, however, is binding oneself to the past or fixating on the future, instead of living in the present moment.

We measure our lives by time, by how many years have passed since this, and how many days are left until that. And many of us waste that time on regrets about the past and worries about the future, myself included, even thought it’s obviously foolish to be so consumed with either the past or that future that we miss out entirely on the present.

If we waste precious time regretting past events or situations, in particular ones we cannot go back and change or make amends for, or if we spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about things in the future that may not even happen ~ then we miss out on a lot of living. And I’d suspect we know that in our heads, whether we are actually able to practice it or not.

Having said that, it’s equally foolish to pay no attention to lessons from the past, or be attentive to the requirements and realities of the future. If we don’t learn from history, we are told that we are doomed to repeat it, as seems to be played out regularly in world events.

And it’s silly not to pay attention to or have some practical foresight about our future. We get vaccinations against the possibility of contracting a disease, and if we are able, we start retirement plans to help us be financially viable after we stop working ~ both help us anticipate the reality of future scenarios.

But we all know that we are capable of going overboard at times, worrying about the future or staying stuck in the past. So some of us need to try to find a balance between attending to the lessons and requirements of time, both past and future, without giving up the ability to live in the present, which those lessons and requirements make possible in the first place.

What do I mean by that? Well, I’m not the same person I used to be when I was, say, 21, so what’s the point of fixating on things I did when I was 21, drowning in regret or guilt? Sure, that person is still part of me. And yes, if there is any way to remedy a situation from the past by seeking out someone I may have harmed by making amends, then certainly I should try to do so, if it’s not too late. But whether or not I am able to do that, the reality is that I am more than my 21 year old self ~ I am the sum of all my parts. And if I let myself get stuck living in my regrets about my 21 year old self, it robs my 41 year old self the opportunity to live fully now.

Likewise, if someone gets so wrapped up in trying to make sure that everything is perfect for when they retire, they risk missing what’s going on now. That can happen by pinching every penny now so that not one red cent is spent on pleasure or anything extra, and all of it is saved for the future (of which there is no guarantee anyway). Or it can happen when a parent’s obsession with work and making money is to the detriment of his or her relationship with their growing children, time which they can never get back, but for which, of course, he or she can redeem if they pay attention to it now.

Speaking from my own experience, it seems to me that we can get so caught up in the regrets, guilt and missed opportunities of our past, and/or in the hopes, needs and fears of our future, we miss the wealth of our present. Thus we need to make a decision about our attitude regarding what time owes us or what we owe time, about how time enslaves us or how we can be free of time.

Because ultimately, we have the choice between either making time our ally or our enemy, of whether or not to benefit from lessons learned, or to allow ourselves to be bound to mistakes that need no longer define us. In that place of balance, we can live in the present moment with a sense of appreciation and fullness, releasing the ghosts that haunt us in both our past and our future.

Susan is always on time, and is an author on a site for
Creative Writers (http://www.Writing.Com/).

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Louis Essen was born in 1908 in a small city in England called Nottingham. His childhood was typical of the time and he pursued his education with enjoyment and dedication. At the age of 20 Louis graduated from the University of Nottingham, where he had been studying. It was at this time that his career started to take off, as he was invited to join the NPL, or National Physics Laboratory.

It was during Louis’s time at the NPL that he began working to develop a quartz crystal oscillator as he believed they were capable of measuring time as accurately as a pendulum based clock. Ten years after joining the NPL Louis had invented the Essen ring. This was an eponymous invention which took its name from the shape of the quartz which Louis had used in his latest clock and which was three times more accurate than the previous versions.

Louis soon moved on to newer areas of research and began to study ways to measure the speed of light. During World War II he began to work on high frequency radar and used his technical ability to develop the cavity resonance wavemeter. From 1946 it was this wavemeter which he used, along with a colleague by the name of Albert Gordon-Smith, to make his lightspeed measurements. It has been acknowledged recently that Louis’s measurements were by far the most accurate to have been recorded up until that time.

During the early part of the 1950’s Louis began to take an interest in research which was being carried out at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in the United States of America. He learnt that work was being carried out to invent a clock which was more accurate than any other. The American scientists were using the idea of maintaining a clock’s accuracy by using the radiation emitted or absorbed by atoms. At that time the Americans were using a molecule of ammonia but Louis felt that this was not working as well as if they were using different atoms, such as hydrogen or caesium, and so he began working on his own clock using these materials instead.

1953 saw Louis and a colleague, Jack Parry, receiving permission to develop an atomic clock at the NPL based on Louis’s existing knowledge of quartz crystal oscillators and other relevant techniques he had learned from the cavity resonance wavemeter he had previously designed. Only two years later Louis’s first atomic clock was running, Caesium I, designed by the UK scientists. Development in the United States had all but stopped due to political difficulties.

Louis continued to work on his atomic clock and by 1964 he had managed to increase the accuracy of the atomic clock from one second in 300 years to one second every 2000 years! The continued success of Louis’s work resulted in the definition of a second being changed from 1/864000 of a mean solar day to being calculated as the time it took for 9192631770 cycles of the radiation in an atomic clock.

Louis Essen died in 1997 and before his death had been honoured with, amongst others, an OBE and the Tompion Gold Medal of the Clockmakers’ Company.

For more information and samples of atomic clocks visit http://www.atomic-clocks.org the site contains information about atomic clocks and some images.

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We expect a lot from our clocks. We expect them to be breathtakingly beautiful. We expect them to make a strong statement about our status in life. They should brighten our home with their elegance. Their rich chimes should fill our life with music. Above all else, though, they should be reliable and steadfast.

At some point, we’ve all heard the phrase that something works “like clockwork.” That is how dependable we expect our clocks to be. We think of them as infallible. Clocks have become a symbol of everything strong and faithful. In fact, we put our lives in their hands, trusting them to keep us on time, on track, and on schedule. What could be a better symbol of steadfast loyalty than the grandfather clock? Standing well over 6 feet tall and constructed of solid wood, they are the very picture of faithful duty.

In the world of grandfather clocks, German grandfather clocks are known to be well-made and valuable. They are among the most respected and trusted clocks of all. In fact, some of the most revered antique grandfather clocks are of German craft. Harfen-Gong grandfather clocks, for example, are German-made antiques. Many are still working today, which is further testimony to the quality of German craftsmanship. Another popular German clock was made by Berger & Wuerker in the early 1900s.

German parts are often an intricate ingredient even in clocks made in other parts of the world. In any country, German movements are synonymous with quality and reliability. The oldest existing maker of mechanical movements is the Kieninger Clock Factory, founded in Germany in 1912 by Joseph Kieninger. Today, many of the world’s best clocks, such as Howard Miller and Ridgeway, rely on the technology of German movements.

Though most grandfather clocks are not actually made in Germany today, the German technology is still the driving force behind some of the greatest and most valuable grandfather clocks on the market.

Grandfather Clocks Info provides detailed information on antique, contemporary, discount, English, and German grandfather clocks, as well as kits and repair information. Grandfather Clocks Info is the sister site of Cuckoo Clocks Web.

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