Time Flies. Fortunately, You Have Wings

You may think that you do not have enough time for everything. The real problem is that time does not have enough of you. You can feel overwhelmed by how days and months are suddenly gone, how the years go by… But remember this: While it may be true that time flies, you are the one with wings. You should always have control over where you fly so that you can enjoy the view.

Saint Agustin once remarked that few things are as complex to define as the idea of ​​time. “If no one asks me, I know what it is, but if someone asks me, ‘What time is it?’, I am not able to explain it.” Things become even more confusing if we consider that each culture and each country has its own ideas on the subject.

For many Western societies, “time is money”. It may seem silly, but since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the persistent and unstoppable “tick thank you, tick thank you” sound is synonymous with money. Our daily lives are governed by a series of patterns and routines that are mostly defined by our work plans.

Now, here’s a particularly interesting fact that should make us stop and think. According to an article published in Business Insider, countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria have a linear understanding of time. They also think that the time spent working is time well spent.

But in southern European countries like Spain and Italy, things are changing a bit. Authors like Richard Lewis tell us that people in these places are “multi-active”. The more they can do at the same time, the happier they feel. However,  they think that the best way to invest time is not at work, but in the company of other people. In this case, time is spent well, time is spent building good relationships.

Time flies: Childhood, adulthood

A child has a completely different perception of time than an adult. For children who have just started life, sensory information is so intense, magical and fascinating that everything seems more alive. The days go by slowly and calmly, like a giant elephant walking at a snail’s pace through an extraordinary world. This world is a collection of shapes, textures and colors, with endless things to discover, and new information and new memories to assimilate.

However, adults live deep down in a music box where the same melody is always played. The strict routine makes the tension dull and catches us in a predictable cycle that disconnects us from everything that once seemed extraordinary.

So, since the world seems too familiar and every day is virtually the same, time shoots forward. Our adult perspective of time detached itself long ago from the company of the elephant we were talking about. As we walked with him, he invited us to walk slowly, to focus on the here and now.

Two visions of time, a child and an adult, reinforce what William James called “psychological time”. This theory reminds us that time does not necessarily have to go faster as we get older. To some extent, it all depends on how we live our lives and our ability to continue to experiment and appreciate the nuances of life with excitement and curiosity.

Open your wings, do not let time fly for you

Time flies faster when we are adults, we all know that. Still, it is worth pointing out that we are the ones who have wings, so we should allow ourselves to be present and enjoy the view. We should seize the moment and let the warm breeze take us to see the most beautiful sunrises.

It is nevertheless clear that we have obligations, work to do, goals to achieve, and routines to continue to bring harmony to our existence. But to enjoy a better quality of life, we need to understand one small thing. Time is the most valuable thing we humans can use.

If we do not like what we do or work on something we really enjoy, we are wasting our lives. The oars fly by, they disappear like a lump of sugar in the sea. We can not let this happen. There are times when we have to let things happen, but there are also moments when we have to make things happen. We make them happen because we want to and because we need to.

To achieve this, our only choice is to open our wings and search for our destiny, our place, our people, our purpose… We should do whatever we have to to make it possible. We should take full advantage of the time we have, because time flies