I have had this very weird relationship with time for as long as I can remember. There are days that seem like the seconds are just dragging on and taking forever to pass by. Other times there are days where I feel like I wake up, blink, and then I am going to sleep again. In the midst of all of these days where no hour passes in quite the same way, I have always had this underlying fear. A fear that I don’t have enough time to do what I want with my life. A fear that I am not spending my time correctly. A fear that I have too much to do and too little time to do it. My heart rate speeds up, my hands start to shake, and I panic. I feel like the world is collapsing in on me and there is nowhere else to turn.
Every time I get panicky, I start thinking about this video I watched on YouTube. This video goes on to explain how many days we have to do what we want by using jelly beans. The video starts out with roughly 28,835 jelly beans (the average amount of days in a lifetime) and then ends up with only 2,740 jelly beans after removing the days we spend working, sleeping, using the bathroom, etc. With what’s leftover, there is not a lot of time left to really accomplish anything major — or so we think.
I think this is a common thing that a lot of people are starting to notice and panic about. We wake up, work our lives away, come home, and are suddenly unsatisfied with everything we have been doing. We feel like we only have so many hours to do the things we want to do or see the things we want to see, and it just doesn’t seem like enough. Now, if you are like me, a dreamer, then you want the absolute most out of what this world and this life has to offer. Being told you only have a limited amount of time to do things can become completely overwhelming. When I get in these moods, there is nothing I would rather do than curl up in a ball in my bed and sit there because I feel like that is all there is time for. However, like the video states, I am starting to realize daily that this is utterly untrue.
Every single second your heart is beating and your lungs are pumping air in and out, you have the opportunity to do whatever it is you want to do. You don’t have to subscribe to the mindset that all you were born to do is wake up, work your life away on a job you don’t believe in or enjoy, and then come home to sleep and do it all over again if you don’t want to. You have the complete freedom to take each moment as an opportunity to experience new things, meet different people, spread positivity, and love to those around you, and live your life the way that you have always dreamed of.
Because of the panic attacks that set in every once in a while, I often forget how much time I actually have. I am very young, with a lot to learn and so much to experience. There is no clock ticking away by my ear telling me that my time is almost up. I am so lucky to be alive and have the opportunity to do all of the things that my soul desires. Not everyone is this lucky. Some people have their lives taken away from them way too soon and unexpectedly. Some people can’t control their situations and are forced to work away their lives to survive. Some people just don’t have the abilities to do what they really want to do. We should count our lucky stars that we get an opportunity that not everyone has.
There are a lot of things that can prevent us from spending our time here on Earth the way we want to. I just hope that fear is never what stops anyone from anything. Don’t be afraid to go out there, take a chance, and take your time. Don’t let the thoughts of not having enough time keep you from doing something with it because guess what? That is a lie. The amount of time you have on this earth is the perfect amount of time for you to have, so don’t waste it away worrying about it. I am casting out the fear in my life right now. Will you join me?
