Five-a-Day: Day 9: 25th of January 2023

I guess one of the paradoxes about time, and valuing it, is that if you spend too much time thinking about it, you waste it, but then if you turn away quickly to do something and then look back to see if it’s still there, it’s gone. We really aren’t given enough time to appreciate it, which is also a paradox. You’d think that the less of something we have, the more we’d appreciate it. But actually, it takes time to learn appreciation. And practice. When you’re young you can’t appreciate it, and by the time you’re not young, it’s too late! And it really is a sort of lottery in many ways. Those of us who were born or conditioned to be adventurous seize life and time by the hands, and manage to fit so much more in than the rest. And the rest of us wake up one day and wonder why we let so much of it get away from us — full of regret of opportunities not taken and questions unanswered. But even those who live life to the fullest suffer the tragedy of often not taking a moment to appreciate the greatness that they’re living through, and they themselves wake up and ache to relive it. Time is a tragedy for all. We’re almost all due a replay. A chance to do it right. And it doesn’t seem fair that we don’t get that opportunity. The best we can hope is to do a better job at passing that lesson down to the next generation than our parents did. Time really is sand through our fingers, and although trying to hold onto it is futile, paying attention to the sensation of it running along your skin is something that we could all learn to do better.