Everyone knows the saying "time flies when you're having fun." And the older we get, the faster and faster it seems to go. I once assumed this meant I was having more fun and doing more with my life, until someone in my honors class put it in a way I had never thought of before.
When you're 5, one year accounts for 20% of your life, making it seem so much longer than by the time you become 15 and that one year only makes up roughly 7% of your life. This pattern continues, of years getting shorter and shorter, until you realize you're 70 years old, and one year is equal to only slightly more than 1% of your entire lifetime, passing by in the blink of an eye.
The truth is, time flies whether you're having fun or not, so you better choose to enjoy it.
Often times, we spend so much of time looking ahead, preparing and even worrying for our futures. The first 18 years of life are all geared toward preparation for college, and the next 4 or more geared toward preparation for a career, an independent life, a family. We think "I can't wait until I'm old enough to...drive, date, stay out past 12, live at my own place, get married, ect."
With each passing age we have a new goal ahead, and while these goals and dreams can be crucial, they can also distract us so much from what is right in front of us.
As best put by One Tree Hill, “One day, you’re 17 and you’re planning for someday. And then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.”
We so easily forget that one day, we'll get there, it's inevitable, time passes whether we want it to or not. Or maybe we won't, death is inevitable too, and what can we say then? That we wished we'd live more of our life emerged in the moments we had rather than waiting impatiently for the ones we thought would come.
So how much percentage of our life has already passed us by and how much of it have we wasted? How many times have we let ourselves be distracted and inattentive instead of enjoying the presence of loved ones? How many times have we complained about a discipline, wether sports, or work, instead of being thankful for the ability and time we have to do it? How many times have we said or thought "if only I could do this, my life would be so much better" rather than making the most of what we have when we have it?
Everyone makes mistakes, that's inevitable too, but the majority of all people's regrets in life come from the things they'd wished they'd done, but didn't, the moments they wish they'd held on to that fled far too soon.
Time flies faster and faster with each passing day, whether you're having fun or not, so you better choose to enjoy it.
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life, make the most of it."
