The Marketplace of Time

Do we actually understand life, or have we simply learnt to live with its uncertainties?

We are born into this world, we grow, we strive to build something stable, we endure, and we work to make a living, only to die. Is that all there is to existence?

I doubt it.

There must be more to life than being born, living through whatever circumstances we encounter, experiencing moments of joy and sorrow, and eventually leaving everything behind. But what is that more, and how do we discover it?

There is a quiet, jarring conflict in how fast everything can change. You see someone healthy today, grounded and full of plans, and tomorrow they are gone. Someone struggles through hardship, perseveres through years of uncertainty, and just as things finally seem to align, you hear that they have passed.

I remember a dear friend from my Master’s program. During our final exams, we shared the road, taking turns to drive and read out loud. She was balancing her studies with a job in another city, making long, exhausting journeys week after week.

Eventually, she grew tired of the endless back-and-forth and made a clear, brave choice for her future. She would resign, settle in the city where we studied, rent a three-bedroom apartment, and bring her mother and sister to live with her. She loved dogs and had already printed business cards for the dog-selling business she intended to launch. Her resignation letter was fully written. She only needed to deliver it after our final paper.

When our results came out, we gathered to celebrate, but my friend was not there to wear her robe or take pictures. She died in an accident on her way to drop off that resignation letter. The letter she had written to begin a new chapter became part of a story that ended before she could turn the page.

What do we make of something like this? How do we reconcile the plans we make with the uncertainty of life itself? We often speak about timing, destiny and the belief that everything happens for a reason. But what do we say when someone dies in the middle of preparing for a future they had every reason to expect?

Could the tragedy have been averted? Was it simply an accident, a consequence of circumstances, or something whose larger meaning we may never understand? We can investigate the physical causes of a person’s death and sometimes establish them with considerable certainty. Yet even when we know how someone died, we may still struggle to understand why that life ended at that particular point, especially when so much remained unfinished.

We mourn our loved ones with deep, heavy grief, yet we go about our days as though we ourselves will live forever. We push these hard questions into the background until loss brings them right back to our doorstep.

In my view, we are not here simply to be born, to live, to cycle through joy and suffering, and then vanish.

There must be more.

But what is that more?

Is it to live an impactful life for others? To serve as a pacesetter through certain experiences so that those behind us might learn? Is this lifetime a preparation ground for wherever we are headed next?

The contradictions are everywhere, shattering our attempts to build a neat logic around existence.

Some people pray every single day of their lives and they die. Others do not pray at all, yet they die too. There are those who cry out to God for mercy at the point of death and are taken. There are others who ask for mercy at that same edge, and their death is postponed.

I do not think death has anything to do with righteousness.

If longevity were a reward for righteousness, why do some seemingly pure-hearted people die untimely deaths while others live to old age?

Then again, how do we measure time? How do we tell divine timing from human tragedy?

One person suffers a headache and, before anyone can make sense of it, they are gone. Another suffers the very same headache and lives on for decades. Healthy people die suddenly; sick people hold on. The outcomes are not always what we expect, and the explanations we reach for do not always settle our questions.

Thinking about this, I have started to view life as a marketplace.

Everyone arrives, moves through the stalls in pursuit of one thing or another, and at an unknown hour, leaves. Some finish their business early in the morning and depart; others remain until evening. But the length of time spent in the market does not, by itself, determine the value of a person’s presence there.

My friend’s plans were full of possibility, even though she never got the chance to fulfil them.

I do not know whether the mystery of life is something we are meant to solve. What i do know is that our time here is uncertain, our plans are never guaranteed, and the people we love cannot be assumed to remain with us indefinitely.

Maybe the task is not to solve the mystery of life, but to live intentionally within it: to hold our plans with open hands, love without waiting for perfect conditions, and leave something of value behind before our time in the market is up.

If none of us knows how long we have in this marketplace, what should matter most while we are here?