When an atom is split particles of matter form. Some of these particles revolve millions, even billions of times more than the earth will ever revolve around the sun. All of this occurs in tiny fractions of a second, almost instantaneously.
It is this fact which first opened my eyes to the concept of relative time. Our existence is so often defined in terms of years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds. How insignificant they seem when a particle accomplishes more than we ever will in our entire lifespan in the blink of an eye!
Maybe the truth is that, just like these units of measurement, we are only part of a whole, an experience that was here before us and will be long after us. With such a lens on the experience of life, one sees that our true contribution is not defined in terms of hour s or days but in the print we leave on the ever-changing world around us. A world of of people, a world of animals, of plants, of cars, of factories; a world of life and everyone and everything living it.