Life: The Time That We're Given

Observation: This is something I wrote while riding home from work when I was in Chicago. Enjoy

So I’ve been thinking about life lately… which is something that is obviously due to the fact that I’m just around the corner from my forties. I try not to think of it, but sometimes I can’t help it. When I turned thirty, I thought, this isn’t so bad… I feel like I did when I was twenty-five. The day I turned thirty-five, I thought, this isn’t so bad… I feel like I did when I was thirty. Funny, how feeling like I did at thirty didn’t coincide with the fact that I didn’t feel like I felt when I was twenty-five. But that is a psychological analysis that I’ll leave for another day. Now, back to this thing called life.

It seems as though I’ve spent most of my life planning for tomorrow. Even after a goal is achieved, or not, there is another task at hand. So quickly do I brush aside the letdowns, the good times and the days of blah, and hurry my way to the next letdown, good time or average moment not worthy of recalling. Life, rushing by like the depreciation of a new car… once adored, but now relegated to menial tasks and traffic jams.

One day while riding the Metra home from work and fully engaged in a Dean Koontz novel, I had a revelation. I thought, what would be my reaction if I were to wake from a coma of six months with two broken legs, a broken spine and having conquered aliens from the planet Kosman 5 trying to control my subconscious and destroy my mind (You have to expect thoughts like this when reading a Koontz novel. Try to look past this disturbing thought and focus on the point I’m making). I would hope that my reaction is that no matter the prognosis, I would appreciate the fact that I am alive. And this is the gist of it.

We rarely truly appreciate the time we are given. How often do we take the time to enjoy a moment with friends, family and significant others? Often times, we are so busy planning and waiting, we don’t really live. As precious as life is, it is often taken for granted. Now, I recognize that sometimes the struggle can be so difficult that it is impossible to enjoy anything. We all have those moments. But those moments are as fleeting as any other. And that is what life is… a series of fleeting moments. Life is an ever changing, disappearing and reappearing of moments that offer something whether we choose to participate in them or not. Most of the time we choose not to participate. “I’ll do that when…” or “There will be plenty of time for that when…” That’s what we tell ourselves and it is so easy to do it because life goes by so slowly until you really start to pay attention to time.

I’ve come to appreciate time. I’ve come to embrace that there only a few things in life that go on indefinitely… God, the universe and spam email. Everything must come to an end and when it comes, it will be the very last moment to enjoy. So, until then folks, take a moment to enjoy yourself. Plan for tomorrow… but don’t be blind to today because the only thing you take time to look at is tomorrow. And for goodness sake, when you see the pale, illuminating lights in the forest is accompanied by a hypnotic pulse, turn away and run. That’s how the aliens from Kosman 5 enter your mind and will use you as a surrogate in its quest to take over the human race. But, that is just something I was thinking a moment ago… on to something else.