The golden hour is “the period of the day just before the sun sets or after it rises, when the light is redder and softer than usual so that photographs taken in it have a pleasing quality,” (thank you, Cambridge Dictionary); it’s also “the hour immediately following traumatic injury in which medical treatment to prevent irreversible internal damage and optimize the chance of survival is most effective,” (much darker, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, but thank you too). As much as I joke, both are important and have the same general message: there’s a time that’s of peak importance that if missed may result in a less-than-opportune outcome.
 
I would argue that the idea of a golden hour can be applied to our lives (and not in a medical way). I would also argue that it’s completely useless to try and figure out when it is – hear me out.
 
Firstly, yes, we all have golden hours, and we’ll have a lot of them in our lives. Sure, photographers only have two hours in the day to choose from, a measly 1/12^th of the day, but they have infinite days. Some days won’t provide any golden hours with all the clouds and some will provide the most beautiful images of their careers. Our lives can have a similar outlook. Sometimes we’ll miss the opportunities we should have taken, and other times we’ll be in the right place and the right time and make the right choice in a way that could make Forrest Gump jealous.
 
Right now, I’m sure most of us are thinking this is our time – this is the make-or-break moments that will define our careers, define our lives – and maybe that’s so, and maybe it’s not, and there really is no way of knowing it was a golden hour until we are granted the gift of hindsight. I have no qualms admitting I have made a mistake or two, already completely missing some golden hours, while also occasionally accidentally stumbling upon new and possibly better golden hours. It’s not the end of the world if we miss one golden hour, another will shine on us eventually, possibly even warmer than the missed one.
 
The problem with obsessing over golden hours missed or those which are coming up is the fact that you stop living and put all the pressure on that hour to be the hour for you, the one thing that did or will define you. You can only make the golden hour so golden before you’re just putting in unnecessary time to ultimately change nothing. Yes, golden hours can define you, but so can every other hour; there are a lot more ‘non-golden’ hours that are still important to who we are, and if you’re missing out on that to try and focus on the golden one, it’s a net loss. A photographer probably isn’t the best in the world if they only take pictures during the so-called golden hours; likewise, physicians probably wouldn’t be in practice for long if after the essential golden hour has passed, they stop treatment. The same can be said about us if we deem every other part of our lives unimportant or lesser; we’re not reaching our full potential. Don’t miss out on a golden hour because you were too busy looking into the past or daydreaming about a future you could have if things had gone ‘right.’ You can’t change the past, and nostalgia is a dangerous rose-colored game.
 
So, let’s make a pact. Let’s keep an eye out for those golden hours, but let’s not push all our being into them if we see one coming; maybe it’s not as golden as we expected when we get there, but that’s fine, too. Let’s not put ourselves down if some slip us by; more will come in one way or another. Let’s not look to the past with wistful longing, changing that golden hour into rose gold; for all we know it was fool’s gold and we were really all the better for letting it go by us.
 
– Cara Deromedi

Cara is a doctoral student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology.