Our Town Play

Last year, in my world literature class, I read Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Before I read this play, I never truly valued time. I always saw it as something arbitrary, a human invention. To me, the clock ticking in background was just signaling the time of day, nothing else. Seconds were just a smaller unit for minutes and minutes were just a smaller unit for hours.

However, after reading Our Town, my whole perspective on time changed. This play follows the life of characters in the small town of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire from their daily childhood lives to their marriages to their deaths. Through reading and discussing the play, I learned the true value of time. Time is not an arbitrary human invention. It is rather a countdown clock telling me how much time I have on earth. The play taught me that my life is short and that time passes by quickly. In just the three short acts of the play, I saw the characters grow up and die. These characters

Life is not about the major events such as birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations. Life is characterized by the ordinary everyday events such as getting out bed or eating breakfast. Every second in life is significant not just the milestones. The thirty minute drive to work is valuable. The two hour wait at the airport is valuable. To me, it is important to make every second in life matter.

My belief in valuing every second of my life can only be achieved by living one moment at a time. I used to spend my time looking forward to the events that would happen in a week or in a month. I would never be in the moment. I would be sitting in class on a Monday morning looking forward to the long weekend. I realized that I could not continue to do this. I needed to live life one moment at a time. Otherwise, time would continue to fly by. Life’s about living in the present not the future. That is the key to valuing every second of