What is Time?

I know everyone has heard of all the cheesy talk about how there is no such thing as time, and that it is simply a way for humans to cope and schedule their lives, while it is that it is so much more.  When you think of what time is to an individual  and what it actually means to each of us you find yourself asking all sorts of altruistic questions, is time simply to me my life here on this earth or is it something more? Or when thinking of how time is described as a flowing river is here and now the ending point? Or are all of these things relative?
When I think of time it as it may you is a bit baffling because my past and memories are all in my head which makes my own personal history the most relevant.  Now becomes more of the actors currently on the stage and is so fleeting to comprehend.  In thinking of the future I picture a road in front of me leading somewhere and find myself how much that even matters anyways if for some reason tomorrow becomes my end,  Time truely is one of the more perplexing notions.
Having asked all these seemingly open ended questions I am struck by  the possible ramifications of each of those questions and as usual I must find a way to tie it back to my practical life or else it has no meaning.  I once heard that the presence or affects of Light and Energy shone or spent in our universe never end but continue on their coarse or path and this presence affects and shapes the whole universe.  Building off that thought or harnessing it I feel that our time is a bit like a torch/flashlight.  Our past being the butt end of the flashlight with the batteries and science which creates the lights and decides where it shines.  The present is like the lens in which all the energy is focusing its heat and light directing the coarse on which the light will shine, and like flashlight it is the hottest and most important part because of its relevance to the device.  The Future of course in this analogy is the light which shines from the light which in and of itself isn't tangible but its affects and purpose are felt by those around it the light that was shown never disappearing from the world but only spreading itself thinner and and having wider affect until it seemingly becomes a piece of the whole, much like how if you where to stand in front of a spot light it would be so light it would blind you but as you look up in the sky you see a much larger circle or less density but of farther influence.
Our time and our lives become like the flashlight the tangible portion of what we accomplish in our time. Through the use of that Flashlight/time we ourselves become a symbol of something much greater and having much more influence over this tangible world than we will ever fully realize.  That thought excites me, and helps motivate me to make my life and my time be something worth all that influence in which it garners.  Hopefully through my writing this it might become that for someone else as well.