Do You Have the Time?
Living our lives
by Claire Law (revised)
Suitable for Whole School (Sec)
Aims
To reflect upon how we use our time.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Do You Have the Time?) and the means to display them.
- Have available the YouTube video ‘Rolex commercial’ and the means to show it during the assembly. It is 0.37 minutes long and is available at: https://youtu.be/JOKsac-a7Mg
- Optional: you may wish to arrange for a student to read the Bible passage Ecclesiastes 3.1-8 during the ‘Time for reflection’ part of the assembly.
Assembly
- Show Slide 1.
Welcome the students to the assembly and explain that you are going to show a short advertisement for a product.
Show the YouTube video ‘Rolex commercial’ (0.37 minutes long). - Ask the students to name the item that was being advertised.
Listen to a range of responses.
The answer, of course, is that the advert was for Rolex watches. Rolex was founded in the UK in 1905, but has been based in Geneva, Switzerland, since the end of the First World War. According to a recent report, its sales revenue for 2021 was about £7.5 billion, and in 2020, it produced more than two million pieces. - Show Slide 2.
The most expensive Rolex that has been released so far is the Rolex GMT Master II Ice, which had a price tag of about $485,350. As we can see in the picture, it is entirely covered in precious stones and made from white gold. - It might seem strange that we still place such a high value on watches. After all, most of us can find out the time by using our smartphones nowadays, so we don’t need a watch any more. Despite this, watches remain popular both as timepieces and as fashion statements.
We still like to have a means of knowing the time that is close at hand. If someone asks us, ‘Do you have the time?’ we usually understand the question to mean, ‘Can you tell me the time?’ Many of us would instinctively look at our wrist to check the time if we heard that question. If you are lucky (or rich!) enough to own a Rolex, it is a pleasure to be able to check your wrist and find out the time. - In the long history of watches, there are some key moments that show how much importance humans have placed on knowing the time.
Show Slide 3.
The first pocket watches were invented in the sixteenth century. They were designed to hang from a chain so that the wearer could easily get the watch from their pocket. The watch in the picture is from the seventeenth century and was made in Germany. With its beautifully ornate carving, it was a status symbol as much as a way to tell the time. - Show Slide 4.
The image on the right shows the Bulova wristwatch that was owned by David R. Scott, the commander of NASA’s Apollo 15 mission in July 1971. He was the seventh person to walk on the moon and the first to drive a lunar rover there. He is also the first and only astronaut in history to wear a personal watch on the surface of the moon. - Show Slide 5.
This is the first ever electronic digital watch to go on sale. The Hamilton Pulsar P1 was launched in April 1972 and priced at $2,100 (equivalent to about £11,500 today). It used an LED display behind a synthetic ruby crystal, all encased in solid gold. The display was so power-hungry that it lit up only temporarily when the user pushed a button on the front of the unit. However, this was cutting-edge technology at the time.
Just one year later, James Bond sported a subsequent model of this watch in the film Live and Let Die. It might seem strange to think that these examples from 50 years ago are precursors to today’s Apple watches!
- I wonder why we love to tell the time so much. Why does time matter to us as humans?
There are all sorts of ways to answer that question, but one factor is that time is limited. We can think of it as a resource that we can use, either efficiently or wastefully. Consider our school day. Each lesson is a limited amount of time – (insert your school’s lesson length) minutes of learning. Among you, your classmates and your teacher, you have that limited amount of time to make gains and progress in your learning. Hopefully, by the end of the lesson, you will have learnt or gained something. If not, we could say that it has been a waste of time. - All of our lives are limited by time. We have a certain amount of time from the point when we are born to when we die. That amount of time varies, of course. Our health, where we live and the era in which we live can all affect how long we have on earth.
Life expectancy at birth in the UK from 2018 to 2020 was 79 years for males and 83 years for females. Of course, there is huge variation within that statistic. For example, some of us may have relatives who are older than this. There are older public figures too, such as the Queen, who is now 96 years old and the longest-reigning British monarch, and Sir David Attenborough, who is also 96 and has had a long career as a broadcaster and natural historian. On the other hand, there are sadly some people who die young or in middle age.
Some countries have a much lower average life expectancy, due to war, poverty or a lack of access to healthcare. In a World Bank Group table from 2020, the Central African Republic was listed as the country with the lowest life expectancy, averaging 53.68 years. Civil war has been taking its toll on this country for the last ten years, and continues to do so.
Fortunately, there are many people who use their time to work towards a fairer, more peaceful world where people have access to proper healthcare among other things. Many of us may have supported charities that work towards improving medical treatments or providing solutions to global problems. - Sometimes, we know the time limits of certain activities, such as lessons. After all, which of us can say that we haven’t watched the clock in a lesson, waiting for it to end? Yet there are other times in our lives when we can’t be sure how much time we have. We couldn’t say for sure how long lockdown would last, for example.
This is true of life itself too. Despite the statistics for average life expectancy, no one can say for sure how long they will live on this earth. This can be an upsetting thought, but it can also help us to appreciate the time that we have and remind us of the importance of not wasting it. - In philosophy, death is described as an existential given, which means that it is one of the things in life that we can’t change. Our existence on this earth is limited by time, but facing this fact can be liberating. It enables us to reflect on what we want from the limited time that we have available and make the most of it.
- Show Slide 6.
The phrase ‘YOLO’ - you only live once - sums up this idea of living life to the full and making the most of the time that we have. We should make time for the things that matter and avoid wasting time on unimportant things. - Show Slide 7.
The American poet, Mary Oliver, found her own words for this idea. In a poem that she wrote 30 years ago, she asked:
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Time for reflection
Earlier, we heard that the question ‘Do you have the time?’ is often interpreted to mean ‘What time is it?’ However, let’s think about the same question in different ways.
- Do you have the time to live your life fully, and make the most of it?
- Do you have the time to waste on unimportant things?
- Do you have the time to do the things that matter?
- How are you going to use the time that you have today?
The Bible reminds us of the importance of time. A well-known passage from the Old Testament tells us that there is a time and a place for different ways to spend our time. As we listen to this passage, let’s consider what time means to us and what we want to do with our time today.
Show Slide 8.
Read the Bible passage Ecclesiastes 3.1-8, or ask a student to do so.
Let’s think about a few questions.
- What do we want or need to do with our time today?
- Is it time for us to be silent, or to speak?
- Is it time for us to begin something, or end something?
- Is it time for us to move, or be still?
- Is it time for us to be with others, or be alone?
There are no right or wrong answers here, but this passage can help us to reflect upon how we use our time and spend our lives.
Let’s spend a few moments in reflection.
- What do you want to make time for today?
Pause to allow time for thought.
- What would be a good use of your time today?
Pause to allow time for thought.
- What do you need to help you to become more aware of the gift of life that you have?
Pause to allow time for thought.
Prayer
Dear God,
We know that our time on earth is limited.
Help us to be encouraged by that, rather than disillusioned.
Help us to make each moment count by finding ways to use our time that are right for us.
We ask you to guide us to manage our time in ways that are good for us, and kind to others.
Amen.
