Who knows where the time goes

Each and every day, time progresses and we continue to measure that progress through mechanical and emotional means.  I look at the clocks and think “where has the time gone?”.  The calendars show large groups of time coming and going. Events that once seemed like yesterday, now have to be recalled from the recesses of our minds’ memory banks.  Time flies, time goes by, time, time, time….

I’m finding, as are so many of my cohorts in life, that time is moving as usual, but at a seemingly much faster rate!  The marked anniversaries of events approach and our first thoughts seem to be “was that really that long ago?”  Why? What’s happened between then and now? Are we losing our minds or our times?  Why does it seem to be only a couple of years, when in fact it has been twenty?  We spend time watching young ones playing with innocence and disregards for the worries of today, and within a blink of an eye, BANG! Now they are taking pictures of their children, our grand-children. Time? Hello? Did a beat or two get skipped? Hello?  How is it that the news media shares the anniversary story of a major event and we sit in dismay at the ‘time’ that is announced?  This time-speed continuum might be fun for the youngsters waiting with anticipation for the age of driving to come upon them, or the expectant mother-to-be wanting to get the kid out now, or the sick and anguished waiting for the final rest to be rid of the pain. As for the rest of us who really are not in any type of hurry, that time-speed continuum can just take it down a few notches…..some of us are struggling to keep up!

Busy, busy times we live in!  While the localized issues of today rage in our backyard, the general issues of today flourish within the communities, the major issues of today build-up globally, all these things happen and we seem to be missing out!  Are we becoming so obsessed with more and more events going on at once that we lose out on the simple things?  Are we craving for more activity in an over-active life?  I think that a simple check of current trends within the health community will show that we really are gluttons.  Gluttons to the need for more busy, busy, busy within our realms.  But, wait! There’s more! If you hurry now, you can effectually create a wave from the center of your pond to ripple out into the community, then the nation, and subsequently the whole planet!   Share, spread, fuel!

BRAKES! Why?  Why this need? Hasn’t anyone heard of the very sage-like statement: ‘Too much on our plates”?  Hello?! We don’t have very big plates to begin with, so continuing to heap mounds and mounds of more stress, anger, hurt, anxiety, pain, anguish, confusion, and a host of other words onto that small plate we have been assigned in life, is utter madness!  The time-speed continuum is being fueled by this type of behavior.   We are so focused on creating more clutter that the truly important events in our lives fade back and are now blurry at best.  We blame the time-speed continuum for taking away that special moment when in actuality, we took it away.  We buried it under a mound of busy clutter.  It’s that comedic bit where they open that closet and loads of junk, stuff, things, items, whatever you want to call it, come crashing down around us.  Do we really find the item we wanted to see?

I have become fond of the word “shiney”.  I use it in many situations where I want to point out the futility of people trying to focus on one thing and seemingly drifting off to another, then another, then another, until finally they are miles away from the starting point.  That shiney that we give in to so much these days is that desire to have it all, at once, without the slightest regard to things we already have had….such as the important events we want to memorialize.  The shiney’s of our desires have been the creation of the time-speed continuum.  We are not settled for the simple, basics of life.  We crave that closet full of “stuff”.  We need more and more projects and schedules and plans and things, things, things, to keep us “busy”.

Common sense once told us that too much of a good thing can be detrimental to our lives.  That common sense was clear in flagging us to when we were starting to get overloaded.  There comes a time when that shiney is actually our Achille’s Heel and we end up losing……everything!

A great song that was shared with the world long ago (so it seems!) contained the title ‘Who knows where the time goes?’.   I borrow the beginning verse to share with you how simplicity has its beauty.

“Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving.  But, how can they know it’s time for them to go?”

They know when to leave, before the winter’s fire.  Why? Simple….they don’t fuel the time-speed continuum and lose track of the important things.  They have amongst them: Common Sense!