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All You Have to Decide Is What to Do With the Time That Is Given To You
The timeless wisdom of JRR Tolkien
In his early 20s, JRR Tolkien, along with his three best friends, was thrust into the trenches of the first World War. Two of those friends would not survive.
In part because of this terrible and terrifying lived experience, Tolkien would weave together a narrative that will undoubtedly stand as one of humanity’s greatest literary works. What I love about Tolkien is that, despite the horrors he endured, he had a beautiful optimism toward life. He even coined a term when he realized there was no opposite of the word catastrophe. He called it a eucatastrophe. The prefix “eu” is Greek for good.
There’s one line in the Fellowship of the Ring that, for me, embodies the essence of Tolkien’s optimism. In the 2001 movie, when they are lost in the mines of Moria, Frodo and Gandalf have a brief exchange. Here is that exchange from the movie, which aligns well with the book:
Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
