Do you think time seems to go by faster because we stop paying attention to the details? At a certain point, we’ve seen it all before so we don’t have to watch it as it develops, and only need to stop and snap to when something new happens. And after years, nothing new really happens. Unless we really stop. And force ourselves to see the details in the little things, the everyday things that really aren’t the same. It’s not easy, though. I think we lazily allow ourselves too often to coast along, skimming the surface of our lives, until suddenly we realize that years have passed, years are passing, and we’re missing out.
And even if nothing new seems to happen to us (we’ve already been to school, graduated, moved, gotten jobs, bought houses, started a family, whatever), it’s happening all around us, to our children, to our friends, to our colleagues, to the places we live and work in. Maybe it’s just the new things, after years, aren’t that fun anymore. They’re just painful, or boring, or run-of-the-mill, or worst of all: annoying. They’re the developing creaks and aches of growing older. They’re the news stories that remind us that while the world may be changing, it is often all-too-depressingly the same.
WAKE UP! I need to channel Cher’s character in Moonstruck, slapping Nicholas Cage and shouting “Snap out of it!”
Don’t miss out. You don’t get a second chance. You sleepwalk through these minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and guess what? You don’t get any more of them. Don’t lose out on the time you have by choosing to let it blur past you with a day-in-day-out attitude.
The thing is, too, that we can only live vicariously through our children, our friends, our colleagues, to a certain point…especially our children. They don’t want us hovering over them, worrying, watching, wondering. They want to live in the moment, too, until they learn how to blur it and coast themselves. It’s all new to them, just like it was to us, until Boom! And then bluuuuuuuuuuurrrrr.
How do you stop that slow slide into an indistinct and lazy existence where you move from day to day in the same routines? What if you LIKE that stability, that security, in the comfortable life you live? Haven’t you EARNED it?
WAKE UP! Go outside! Drive a different way to work. Go out at lunch and walk for 15 minutes, even if it’s raining (take an umbrella, you won’t melt, for god’s sake). Eat breakfast for dinner, or popcorn. Tell a co-worker why they’re a good colleague. Turn up the music and sing at the top of your lungs. Try a new recipe. Invite friends over spontaneously for burgers and board games. Give a special someone an extra hard hug. Write about what you saw, what they said, why it was funny or interesting or different. LOOK FOR THE DIFFERENCES. Instead of exercising after work, go for a walk before bed and look up at the sky. You might have seen them before, but the stars look very different today.* REJECT THE BLUR.
*David said it best, of course.