The End...Again.

Well, one year ago today I wrote a blog entry. It was my last night on campus before moving home for the summer. I was at the very end of my freshman year wondering where the time went. Well guess what. I'm doing the same thing again. Tonight is my last night on campus. Tomorrow I take 2 exams and then move home for the summer. Somehow I'm already done with my sophomore year of college and I'm halfway done with my college career. Time went fast...again.

I sometimes think about what exactly we mean when we say time goes so fast. If we're always saying that then apparently it's not odd, it's normal. This "fast" speed that time has is normal. Time always goes this speed. So why do we think it's fast? Fast compared to what? Well the only logical thing I can think of is our childhood perceptions of time. As kids time always seemed to go so slow. It always took forever to get to the next grade. Graduation seemed a lifetime away. Summer vacation was out of sight and nowhere near soon. And so as children we were constantly wishing for the future hoping time would go faster. Then somewhere between grade school and adulthood we got our wish without realizing it. But now time "goes fast" and we wish it didn't. I suppose it's true what they say, "be careful what you wish for."

But as children, who was careful in their wishes? We were young and innocent and we simply wanted things to come faster and all the fun events of our future to be today instead of some day yet to come that didn't seem to be coming at all.

So it makes me wonder: Do children in other cultures experience this same problem? Or in America do we raise our children in such a way that they don't appreciate time? Has the prevalence of instant gratification in regards to material things somehow bled over to our concept of time? How well do we train children to appreciate the moment?

I don't think looking forward to some future event is bad, but so often in my life I'm so focused on future events that I let current events pass me by. Then months later I wonder where time went. Well, if I had opened my eyes to the present back then I would have noticed that all those times were passing me by. I lived them. But I almost didn't realize it because the future was more important.

So instead of focusing so much on the future, I suggest we take a look around us right now. What is going on in your life? Stress? Pain? Boredom? Maybe. But this is time. Time given to you only once. And no matter how terrible it is and how wonderful the future looks, remember that the future always becomes the present. We need to enjoy where we are. Because where we are is all the time we may have. So look around. Take note of where you are in life. Are you doing something worthwhile? Is this present where you wanted to be back when it was the future?

Alright, well this post ended up longer than I imagined. I have two exams tomorrow that I need to study for and a job I have to wake up for at 5:15am. So this will be the end. But I will finish with a quote I like that my university president often says to us students.

"You are not becoming tomorrow what you are not becoming today."
~William Brown