Now, more than ever, I feel old. It felt like just last week I had graduated high school. It felt like yesterday I walked into school, an eager freshman excited for new challenges.
I feel old – not in the wise sense. But rather in the “I am running out of time sense.”
I am 20 years old (nearly 21 now). For years, everyone around me has told me to “hurry up and wait.” I have received loads of advice over the years (most of which I do not particularly like). The worst of which is to just wait for my time to come.
What does that mean? I really never understood it.
Now…I am running out of time. At least I feel that way. It is not necessarily a bad way to feel, though. It reinforces urgency. It reinforces will, desire to make the most out of everything that I do.
Life is a paradox in the sense that when you are young, all you have is time. Yet you do not know what to do with it. As you get older, you lose time but have more things you want to do.
How do you tackle this challenge?
Inevitably, you cut out things you do not care about. You spend time on things you do care about. You spent time with people you love and think about.
That is the perfect world, of course, as other factors often cloud our vision, locking us into certain paths or chambers that do not provide us with enough flexibility to truly do what we care about.
An important question I ask myself when thinking about “running out of time” is finishing the sentence and thinking about “what is it that I am running out of time to do?”
Why am I hurrying up? What is my urgency for?
My answer: everything.
Everything is forwards. Everything could be nothing tomorrow. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is promised. Nothing can be taken for granted for.
Change happens slowly, until it does not.