Time is such a tenuous thing. You think you have alot of it, and it passes by at an astonishing rate. Its amazing how many concepts around our daily existences revolve around it. We can ‘make time’, ‘pass the time’, ‘let time slip through our fingers’, ‘kill time’, ‘waste time’ and so on.

When we’re young, we think there’s so much time, we can’t hardly find ways to fill it all, and end up bored. We look forward to getting older, becoming like our parents or other idols of our youth. As we get older, we abandon some idols for others or end up in a searching pattern, trying to find our ideals, goals, wonts, desires and faith. At some point, we think we know what we want, or at least accept that it is a moving target, and simply strive to always move to that target. And then we spend the rest of our days seeking that, filling every single minute of every single day in that search.

It may not always feel like it. It may feel like we’re just existing in some sort of wheel, or locked into a cycle or pattern that simply repeats itself endlessly. But to what end? To make money? Find fame? Become a star? Usually nothing so far fetched or unreachable. But it does feel like there isn’t enough time. Why are we in a rush? Is it something we impose on ourselves? Are we so ‘instant gratification’ driven that we can’t be patient with reaching those goals? Is the short term gain always more important than the long term?

Maybe we do need to slow down again. Societal pressure, as well as our own (perhaps misguided) drives make us push hard against that. A scene from a recent movie just struck me as poignant on this thought. In The Last Samurai, in the lord of the village remarks on his poetry, and how he is seeking the perfect spring blossom. Finally, in his death scene, his eyes already clouded over from his impending death, he remarks that they’re all perfect. Maybe we do need to spend more time in the now, looking at the beauty all around us, share in the pleasures and joys that we already have, instead of dwelling so much on things as yet unrealized.

I’ve always used the phrase casually, “Gotta Have Goals”, usually in reference to something lewd or lascivious. And I don’t think thats changed. You do have to have goals, drives and things that get you up every morning and drive you to excel. So the frustration that I’m feeling now revolves strictly around the constraints we face in accomplishing all that we want within the constraints of the time we’re given. I think I need to step back, evaluate again what is important, and not try and do too much at once. And in the meantime, leave myself enough time to enjoy what is around me now.

I miss college. I think many people might say that same thing. Why? Well, perhaps it was because I was so moved to accomplishing the things I did there that I neglected to enjoy the here and now of it. Maybe 4 years of that kind of environment wasn’t enough. But thats simply an example.

I need to think about that some more.

Share