I've noticed recently in my life how time seems to fly. High school went by very fast and so did college. I recall something I wrote in a letter two years ago; it was how time passed so quickly that it seemed almost as if the clocks sped up whenever I wasn't paying attention, sort of like a cosmic joke. What is interesting though is that it is only the past eight years that this phenomenon seems to be occurring. On the other hand, I feel as if my childhood lasted a lifetime. I don't remember too much of what happened from infancy to middle school, but one thing that I'm sure of is that it seemed like those twelve years felt like a very very long time. I was pondering this today and discovered a possible answer to all this and it has to do precisely with the inner workings of my mind. Since high school, my mind has hardly ever been in the present and it flutters to and fro mostly conjecturing the future, what I would do, what I need to accomplish. In high school, I always had an assignment or project to worry about as well as the impending college applications. My mind was always looking toward college, where it would be, and whether I would even get into one. In college, I think I put unnecessary stress upon myself to over-plan my future and thus my mind was also preoccupied with grad schools and etc. To put it simply, since high school, I have not been living in nor appreciated the present. In addition to all of this was the division of years to semesters or quarters; a year wasn't really understood as 365 days...it was split into the school year and summer break, with the school year being split into further two or three sections.
Before high school, I didn't spend my time thinking or worrying too much about the future. I dealt with school and with life on a daily basis. Except for the few occasions I would look forward to such as celebrating Christmas or being a part of a reading program at the library in the summers, I lived mostly in the present. What I'm trying to get is that my notion of time as fleeting coincided with high school and college simply because I never
entirely lived those years; I was living in a virtual future constantly. On the other hand, I very much lived out my youth because I lived in the present and enjoyed what life brought me. Perhaps to 'extend' my life, I need to revert my mind back more toward the simplicity of a childlike state and truly live and enjoy the present more. This is a Sisyphean task , because I am always worrying about the future. Currently, I'm worried about what I'm going to do after Thailand. I sort of have an idea, but there aren't any concrete plans yet. How can one peacefully live in the secure present if the future doesn't promise such securities? People always say there's a balance between living in the present and planning the future. Apparently, I haven't found such a balance yet, but I pray I will soon.
One way of extending my time: playing with critters
