Wishing Our Lives away

Everybody does it. Every person wishes at one point or another that time would move on or that events would pass by. Clocks must be the most watched and studied items in the world apart from the opposite sex.

Wishing that the seconds, minutes and even hours would tick past is a common past-time that is culturally accepted throughout the world. Nobody sees the stupidity of others watching clocks as they themselves are joint conspirators. No one can see the wrongness behind wishing that a day would move along or that a month would flick over in one day. Everybody is wishing their lives away and we just can't see it. Every single person on this planet in one form or another wishes or hopes that time will move on quicker than it already and are thus wishing their lives to pass in rapid motion.

We wish our lives away yet we get mini heart attacks when we suddenly realize that we are forty. Forty years of wishing ones life away and then "shock", when realization dawns that we are over half way there. Life has passed by ever so quickly but then half of that half life was spent wishing that time would pass.

The average person gets up in the morning and immediately wishes that the day was over so that they can go out to the pub, meet their current partner or maybe go for a spot of gambling at the local bookkeepers. They get to work and wish that it was lunch time, after lunch they wish that it was the end of the day and at the bookkeepers and later they wish that they could finish the day and start another one. The average person wishes for a holiday, they plan and wish all year long for that dream holiday studying the calendar daily to check if another day has passed. And when eventually on that holiday that they had so long dreamed about thoughts are already formulating as to the next one and where to go.

The girl at work is wishing that the day would end so that she can rush to the pub, then at the pub she wishes that she was at work so that she can tell her friends the gossip, at work again she wishes to be with her boyfriend to tell him about work and the pub the night before. Older men dream of retirement, seafarers at sea dream of going home and seafarers at home wish that they could go back to sea.

So there the world is, a place filled with billions of souls all keeping a good check on the movement of their watches and the changing of the pages of their calendars. A whole world wishing that time would pass yet when it does wishing that it had not!

What is it in the human mind that makes it behave so? One could say that it is to do with wanting feelings of security: that we look for good events to be with us to feel secure and complete yet when they happen it is not enough. To look at it in the opposite way, is it possible to feel content with the speed at which an event is currently happening? Can any living person be at ease and without the need to check time for any period or length of time?

At some point in everybody's life there are periods where time seems to stand still, where happiness and security with current surroundings and events causes peace and acceptance. For example when lovers meet under the umbrella of romance or when a good film is on that captivates the audience, but even during these times watches are kept ticking, calendars are kept updated and minds are never far from the tick tock of passing life.

The romantic couple only see each other and can be so involved in their situation that time does have no part of the play. Yet at some point reality sets in and clocks once again can be heard to tick, work calls or the toilet beckons, family commitments urge action and dogs bark! Those at the cinema stop the clock for a little time as they are drawn away from themselves and into the screen, but eventually a child cries a boy wets his pants or a mobile phone rings and immediately time comes back with a vengeance.

It is obvious enough that time plays an important role in our lives simply because the sun sets and rises at regular intervals. We wake up and we fall asleep simply because our internal clock suggests we do so. It is though important to make a distinction between wishing time to pass and to running to a schedule. Schedules are there to keep us regular and timely and as such are okay to be part of, the wishing of time away for no time keeping purpose is the problem. Those at the cinema who suddenly need the toilet should not wish that time would fly past so that they can relieve themselves, and those who are in a romantic interlude should not wish that time would fly so that they can once again be naked. But they do! They actually wish that the time that exists for them at that moment in time would fly past and that is called wishing their lives away! They are actually praying to a higher being that they were an hour older, a day older or even a year older so that an event may occur to which they have been waiting for!

Watches are to blame! Watches and clocks and time keeping counters that adorn every house and room, every electronic device and wall and they are everywhere one looks. The radio has one, a clock on the wall, another in the bedroom and one in the study. The sitting room has many all to itself: the present from the Grandma on the mantelpiece, another from an Aunt. The television has one and so does the video recorder beneath. The Stereo has one and all the people sitting in the room are wearing watches. And then the kitchen and there are not enough fingers to count them. The microwave, the oven, the mixer and the washing machine flash away! The drier and the egg timer, the weighing machine and the dishwasher are also digitally adorned. They all have them and every which way one looks a clock will be there to say "move on, move on"!

So is it any wonder that humans are captured by the constant essence of time? Is it any wonder that the average human constantly wishes that time would pass when ever which way one looks a clock will flash, buzz or cuckoo a warning signal that time cannot stand still!

It is very hard for the human mind to accept that time can stand still. That it is possible to forget which day it is and to live by the rise and fall of the sun!

"What time and day is it"?

"Ooh, I don't know. Must be evening as the sun is falling down or is it rising"?

If somebody would say that then they would be classed as having forgotten the plot and sent to a home for the 'befuddled'. We are not allowed to lose time. We are not allowed to forget which day it is or what time it is. People who ask the time do not want to know that it is in the afternoon, or that it is lunchtime or late evening. They do not even want to know that it is between 3 and 4 O'clock. They want a precise time, an exact to the minute recording of time at that moment as if it is going to make a difference to a sequence of events that is currently unfolding. But ask that person why he needs to know the time and the answer will be "oh, just curious".

Time is so important with us and without which the world cannot function.

A person walking along the road may have three separate devices through which time can be had. The watch that adorns the wrist, the clock that inevitably goes with the mobile phone and the clocks that come for free with laptops or cameras. Never mind the fact that clocks adorn every office block and building in site, that watches are worn by every passerby and that every bus, car and vehicle has one or more in plain view, all counting time away like it is going out of fashion.

Try it dear ladies and gentlemen. Try to live without a clock for even a day! Try to let the brain accept the surroundings that are with you and try to feel content with time as it is. Not time that has stopped and not time that is far in the future but accept the time that is ticking away at the speed that it was designed to tick away at.

It is doubtful that anybody could last five minutes like that. Certainly after 10 minutes all will be studying watches and clocks and wishing that this silly experiment was over and done with!

Time Out!