During the night of March 10-11, some of us were painfully aware that we lost one hour of our lives. Our computers magically took us from 2 to 3 a.m. The culprit: Daylight Saving Time! Hopefully, we will still be around when that hour is returned to us in the fall.

As I thought about the loss of that hour, I realized that it probably won't make much difference to many. We have so much time and one hour won't make any appreciable difference. On the other hand, time is the one commodity we all have. Each of us receives 24 hours each day in our time bank, except those two days when we lose and hour and gain it back later in the year. That amounts to 86,400 seconds. We cannot save time, cannot carry it over to the next day - if we don't use it, we lose it.

The suggestion we hear over and over is to make the most of the time we have. Someone has said that to realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics; to realize the value of one second, ask a person who just avoided an accident; to realize the value of one minute, ask a person who missed the plane; to realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet; to realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby; and to realize the value of one year, ask a patient who has heard the words of the doctor, "I would suggest that you go home and get your things in order." There is no way to stop the ticking of the clock. Each day it uses up 24 hours, and then gives us another twenty four hours to use and enjoy.

I was reminded on Sunday by a new friend of the old Sanskrit poem:

Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth; The glory of action; The splendor of achievement; For yesterday is but a dream,

And tomorrow is only a vision;

But today, well lived, makes every yesterday

a dream of happiness, And every tomorrow a vision of hope.