On the way back from a recent trip to Italy I find myself sitting next to a man-mountain in the economy section of a well known airline company. The person sitting directly behind me has been constantly kicking the back of my seat throughout the journey so far, and now with two hours still to go before we reach Gatwick, the person in front decides they want to get their seat to recline well beyond its normal limits. They bounce it back so hard my free glass of warm water explodes into a million droplets, soaking everything I’m wearing. I can’t stand up to dry off because Houdini himself couldn’t escape from the microscopic amount of space I now have left around me, so I just have to grin and bear it.
I’m not a great lover of long journeys at the best of times, so with wet trousers and the added prospect of having a three to four hour drive after we’ve landed, I was wishing all this nonsense would pass quickly, I just couldn’t wait to get back home.

And I get to thinking………………………
Isn’t it strange that we all wish time away?

In our early years we were so desperate for certain things to happen that we would beg the hours and days to pass quickly. We lived for school holidays, birthdays and Christmas and nearly everything we said began with,
“I just can’t wait to be…………..” (Good idea for a song there I think)
But then that was a time when we had time, and plenty of it so we thought.

In our middle age we are still impatient…….to get home from work…..to go on holiday (without the kids)…….for things to get better, etc, etc.
But again, rarely do we consider time at this age except for the occasional,
“Doesn’t time fly………………..”

Recently a friend of mine was telling me how he can’t wait to retire, and when he does he claimed he would enjoy having so much more time to do the things he loves doing. The trouble is that when he finally leaves work then he’ll have to contend with the knowledge that another phase of his life has gone, never to return, and that in fact he actually has much less time to do the things he likes doing.

If we were to think about it then we’d probably discover that over the years we have spent most of our time waiting for another, hopefully more enjoyable time, a bit like my friend.
And while we muse, time marches on, it never stops, never rests and never sleeps. Sixty paces per minute 24/7 and by the time I’ve finished writing this, a passage of time will have elapsed never to return.
So I think it’s time to call time as it’s now time for me to head off to bed. In time I may actually learn the value of time but I will never have enough time to do everything I have planned because time will run out.

Hmmm…..that’s interesting………
Why is it that time marches on but in the end it always runs out?

With knowledge obtained through age I would suggest we should never wish for the future to hurry up, but rather wait for it patiently instead. After all it’s guaranteed to arrive, and depart, a lot quicker than any of us will ever expect.