WORK FOR THE NIGHT IS COMING

In 1980, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson wrote a book, now a classic, called Metaphors We Live By. They demonstrated how we talk about everyday abstract things, like work, time, mental activity, and feelings, with metaphors.  

For example, we say that “Time is money." And (in American culture) we treat time as if it is money: we spend it, lose it, lend it, save it, and so on. We can illustrate our concepts of time in terms of the metaphors we use. We can even “kill time” with activities that are often pointless, but may help the time "pass quickly.” 

We have heard the proverb that “A stitch in time saves nine,” meaning that it is better to do something well the first time, so there is not a bigger problem we have to deal with later. Although today’s generation has probably never had to stitch anything, the proverb about one’s time is still relevant.

When we follow the proverb, we may “beat the clock” and do something well before we “run out of time.” But, of course, time does not end or run if we try to “beat it,” or turn it off. We cannot “turn back the hands of time,” and return to the past. It is gone forever, no matter how fast we run. And, of course, time does not have any physical “hands,” nor does a clock.

I may claim that “time is on my side,” meaning that I don’t have to worry about how long something will take, but “only time will tell” if that is the case. “Once in a blue moon” I might be right, and I can say that it is “better late than never,” but I may be working “against the clock,” and “in the long run” find that I am “behind the times,” and “not with it.”

When I was in college, I often got an assignment done “in the nick of time,” with “no time to spare.” When this happened “time after time,” I was in trouble. One of my professors told me that it was “high time,” or really, “past time” for completing the work. It was “crunch time.”

I needed to get up at the “crack of dawn” and realize that I perhaps had “too much time on my hands,” and what I thought was “free time” was not. 

Well, “time flies,” and before I knew it, I was a senior. “Time was now of the essence,” with deadlines to meet. I could no longer rationalize that my work would be done “all in good time” because “in the meantime” it was “the eleventh hour” and I had to “make up for lost time.”

I worked hard, and it was “time well spent” because “in the twinkling of an eye,” graduation was upon me. In my “race against time,” I had prevailed and graduated—not with honors, but not with “time off” for another semester either.

I learned that I could no longer “take my time” or I might end up “living on borrowed time.” If that happened, “time would not heal my wounds.”

It was not “rocket science” for me to realize that there would be no more “cutting corners. I would have to “get the ball rolling” or it would be “back to the drawing board.”

Soon, I was “up to speed” and prepared for the “long haul,” which was indeed a “change of pace” for me. I was “burning the midnight oil,” “thinking outside the box,” and “on the same page” as my boss. I did not intend to “throw in the towel” and “miss the mark,” regardless of how high my boss "raised the bar.” I would be careful not to “rock the boat” and “get in hot water again.” I might not see “eye to eye” with management, but I “had my work cut out” and the “bottom line” was that I would not “slack off” even if I “had a lot on my plate.”

I knew “the ball was in my court,” and that every day, “24/7,” I would “peel the onion” with a “helicopter view” of my work. Every “fortnight,” I could then report that I was doing my work “by the book.”

Idioms and metaphors! Figures of speech and symbolic language! We cannot talk without them, and the Bible is loaded with examples. We would be “barking up the wrong tree” if we tried to get by without them. It would be a “wild goose chase” or, as we read in Ecclesiastes, like “chasing the wind.”

Karl Franklin