This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out of, but given me to be stored away in eternity as my own.
But for this afternoon to be my own in eternity it must be my own this afternoon, and I must possess myself in it, not be possessed by books and by ideas on my own, and by a compulsion to produce what nobody needs. But simply to glorify God by accepting His gift and His work. To work for Him is to work that I myself may live.
— Thomas Merton, A Search for Solitude by Thomas Merton, Lawrence S. Cunningham, editor