Last night, I finished reading “The Last Lecture”, a companion piece to the video. This was not really the impetus to write this post, but it did at points echo my sentiments of late. The fates are having their fun because I’ve delayed writing this post for about a month now. Time, after all, is short.
There are myriad reasons why the pressure of time has been escalating in my mind, many of which I’ve already complained to friends. As we get older, even if we don’t have any regrets we wish to air, there does seem to bubble up a panic regarding the trajectories of our lives. How do we prepare ourselves for the inevitable which we wish to deny? It seems cruelly humorous that our growing up requires us to cede the immortality of our youth.
That time becomes more dear as we age is probably inevitable; perhaps more mysterious is why it is not always so valued. Those little quotidian demands that accumulate begin to take their toll: death by a thousand minute cuts. Every day is carved into little pieces, everything seems to demand our attention. Those moments of solitude or bliss become so hard to find.
It is the deserving opponent who commands our worry. It is the ones we love who occupy our thoughts. What we value is that which we think about and do. What we can give to each other is not anything physical, but the most of ourselves: to listen, to comfort, to experience with, to be there for. Ultimately, the only currency we have to spend is time. Maybe it behooves us to slow down sometimes and savor some moments.