Time Is Precious

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about time. How quickly it passes. How precious it is. What I want to do with my time. And how precarious the times are that we’re living through right now.

I’ll admit: I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time in my life worrying about things that never ended up happening. Like just this week, I spent most of Tuesday terrified that the president might actually make good on his threat to wipe out an entire civilization. The volatility of this seemingly endless war has so many of us shaken, scared, and frankly, outraged. Living in that constant state of "fight or flight" doesn't just steal our peace. It’s an expensive tax on the very time we claim to value so much.

Closer to home, I’ve also fretted about scenarios in my own life that never came to be. I’ve spent far too much time worrying when I could have been using that time to rest or be present or grateful. In other words, I have not always treated time as the precious resource it actually is. And that’s a strange thing to admit as someone who’s been acutely aware of the fragility of life since I was a little girl. I’ve long known this to be true. I just haven’t always lived like I know it.

This week, though, I was reminded of this truth multiple times.

One of those times was when I watched Savannah Guthrie return to TODAY after eight weeks away. As many of you know, her mother disappeared from her home in Tucson on February 1st, and for a moment, the entire nation held its breath. The news cycle has since moved on, but Savannah’s family hasn’t. They are still searching. Still waiting. Still living in the stopped-clock world that grief and uncertainty create.

I watched Savannah cry on set, but I also watched her find moments to laugh. Seeing her make space for both reminded me that a human being can hold both grief and joy at the same time. Having the strength to do that—to laugh even while your heart is breaking—is how millions of people actually spend their time. Many don’t get to choose between sorrow and light. They must carry both. And, by the way, doing so is not a form of weakness. It is the fullness of being alive.

I felt the preciousness of time again this week as I watched the Artemis II astronauts all called down to Earth to remember the late wife of their mission commander, Reid Wiseman. Wiseman lost his wife, Carrol, to cancer at the age of 46 in 2020 after a five-year battle with cancer.

“It’s a bright spot on the moon,” said fellow astronaut Jeremy Hansen, his voice breaking up. “And we would like to call it Carroll.”

Wow.

Tears filled my eyes as I watched these extraordinary teammates hug one another and show their love, their softness, and their emotions. I thought to myself, what an honor for us to accompany these extraordinary individuals on their voyage. I also thought, wow, dying at 46 years of age. Two young girls left without their mother. My heart broke at the time they will never get with her, and the time we are getting this week with them.

Then I did a story on the 50th reunion of Charlie’s Angels. Fifty years. It seems like yesterday. And yet there we were, a group of us reminiscing about a moment when all of America watched the same thing at the same time, when we gathered collectively around a shared story. That’s something we’ve lost in the fragmentation of our attention. It’s something quiet and communal that I don’t think we’ve fully grieved.

And then I went to Austin. I traveled to the LBJ Presidential Library with several of my brothers to unveil a book my father wrote 60 years ago but never published. The book is about what our father learned leading the War on Poverty and about how communities and leaders can be imaginative, creative, and effective in solving the very real, very human crises unfolding in front of them in real time.

My father believed he could change things, and he spent so much of his time—his extraordinary, limited, irreplaceable time—trying to do exactly that.

As I stood in that library and listened to my brothers talk about our dad’s passion and political will and creativity, I was struck by something almost too poignant to say out loud: this book never saw the light of day because another war came along and stole the nation’s attention. Stole its resources. Stole its will.

And yet here we are again. In the midst of yet another war stealing our attention and resources.

Here we are again, as millions of Americans are forced to decide whether to eat or buy medicine. Whether to heat their homes or fill their gas tanks. The language has changed. We call it an “affordability crisis” now instead of a poverty crisis, but the human reality is the same. And my father’s lessons, written six decades ago, read like a guidebook for this exact moment.

Time, it turns out, had been keeping the book safe until we needed it again.

The book is called We Called It War: Lessons Learned from the Fight Against Poverty. It comes out April 21, and you can pre-order it here. I think you’ll find it speaks to our present time in ways that will astonish you.

All of this—Savannah, Charlie’s Angels, Austin, my father’s words—brought me back to the same place. Time. How we spend it. How we lose it. How, if we’re intentional, we can begin to reclaim it.

I also found something else in Austin that I wasn’t expecting: joy.

Real joy. The kind that comes from sitting with people you love and talking about someone you’ve lost and laughing and remembering and feeling, somehow, more whole than when you walked in. I didn’t expect a library event to feel like that. But it did. And I really needed that this week.

I needed my dear friend Kate Bowler this week, too.

That’s why I’m glad she’s joining us today to talk about joy: how to access ours, how to share it with others, and how to tap into it while a certain someone is threatening in real time to wipe out millions of people. I mean, good God.

It’s actually a spiritual act at this moment in time to reach out for joy, and I’m glad she is sharing with us her perspective on how to do it.

Ever since the start of this year, I’ve been in a quiet war with my own time. In fact, at the beginning of this year, I hired an executive leadership coach with one clear goal: to help me get some of my time back. To be more intentional about where I spend it and more honest about what it costs when I spend it carelessly. What I’m learning is that time isn’t just a resource. It’s a relationship. With the people we love. With the work that matters. With ourselves.

So I want to offer you something I’ve been working on myself. A simple framework. Four letters. You already know the word.

T — Take a moment. Before this week ends, sit down and honestly imagine what an ideal day looks like for you. Not a fantasy. A real day. What’s in it? Who’s in it? What does the morning feel like? What kind of work lights you up and what kind drains you? Most of us have never actually written this down. We’re so busy managing the days we have that we never design the day we want. We’re so busy that it might even be hard to imagine what an ideal day might look like. But get quiet and try to tap into how you want to feel, and slowly, your heart and mind will start to reveal the things that will bring you closer to your joy.

I — Imagine this day into reality. Once you can see it clearly, ask yourself: what would have to be true for that day to exist? What would you need to say no to? What would you need to say yes to? What fear is standing between you and that vision? This isn’t wishful thinking. This is architecture.

M — Make one small move. You don’t need to overhaul your life this week. You just need to take one step in the direction of the life you actually want. One boundary. One phone call. One morning protected. Small moves, made consistently, change everything.

E — Engage others. Tell someone what you’re working toward. Ask them to hold you to it. We are not meant to do this alone. The people who love us want to help us, but we have to let them in. Community isn’t just comfort. It’s accountability.

And underneath all of this is one truth I keep coming back to: where you put your attention is where your time actually goes. You can protect your calendar and still spend your hours in distress, in dread, in toxic loops of news and noise and comparison. Or you can choose, imperfectly and stubbornly each day, to put your attention on what fills you. On joy. On awe (just look at the pictures of Earth sent by the Artemis crew). On the people right in front of you. On a walk outside, when the light is doing something extraordinary and you almost miss it.

Time doesn’t just pass. It goes where we send it. And we don’t have as much of it as we think.

Our country is about to turn 250 years old this summer. My granddaughter can already beat me at games I just taught her. Savannah’s mother is still missing. And perhaps so are people you love.

When I look into my brothers’ faces, I can see our late father in each of them. And I think about how proud he would be of the men they have become and of how they are spending their time. Working in the Special Olympics. Spreading dignity. Working in education. Working for Save the Children. Working to eradicate AIDS. Working to help those with special needs. Working, every single day, to make other people’s lives and the time they have better.

That was always my father’s mandate. He passed it on well.

My fellow citizens of the world, do not let the noise of this moment steal your attention from what is actually precious. At the end of time, what will sustain us are not the things we rushed through but the ones we stayed for. Make how you spend your time matter.

Also in this week’s issue:

• I Want to Be Someone Who Is Ready to Say Yes

• A Sneak Peek at Maria's Next Life Above the Noise with Sheinelle Jones