Yesterday, someone asked how old I am and after I declined to answer, he decided to guess.
" Twenty four?" He said,pausing for a reply afterwards.
I retorted with feigned irritation. "Do I look that old to you?"
It was then I realized I live very often with the acute sense of time closing in on me to the point that I frequently say things like " I'm too old for that stuff"
"I'm too old to keep grudges"
"I'm too old to start cursing and bickering over things that don't affect me"
"I'm too old to start an argument with someone I could ignore and live in peace with"
"I'm too old to not speak honestly"
"I'm too old to start fooling around with a girl I don't love but want to sleep with...and later realize sex isn't really intimacy"
"I'm too old to..."
My worry has been with time...
It is the one thing I have an uncertain supply of. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be here. For those who think time is ebbing away,
You wake early
Work like crazy
And insist upon processes that only produce results.
The rest are distractions...colorful impurities on a pristine work of art that you have very little time to admire or observe.
No time for gossips, nagging or slopping around.
It was American Poet, Harry Van Dyke, who once said:
"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice,but for those who love, time is eternity"
Indeed, the most efficient way to use time is to sink your neck deep in what you love. But as a pure skeptic of the friendliness of time myself, I have found out that there isn't always time for what you love.
What do you do, when you have a bucket list to climb a famous mountain at 57 and now you are 75 with frail bones and an aching back? You want to do what you love but time nods its bloodless head in disagreement.
Sadly, time has no emotions. It knows neither love nor hate. Ecstasy or Sadness. It just ticks.
While you are invested in what you love, make sure the ticking of time often catches you living like old men that understand how irreversible time is.