Timeless

First published in Column 8 on the 8^th April, 1992

It’s a truism that as we get older the years seem to go by faster. Most of us have become used to it. But it’s pretty disturbing when kids who haven’t even reached their teens say that the years are going too fast.

When I was a kid, and no doubt when other people of my generation were kids, there seemed to be all the time in the world.

Time to spend all day doing things. Holidays lasted forever, and parents weren’t desperate for us to get back to school. A week was an eternity, and a year was such that you could barely contemplate it.

These days it’s not only the adults who suffer greatly from lack of time. Why?

The reason I ask, in my rather rhetorical way, is that I’ve felt as though I’ve been chasing my shadow all year. (And I don’t just mean Column 8 deadlines.)

Not only did the holidays shoot past before I could regain my breath, but I was plunged into the New Year in the same fashion as a stone tossed into a pool by a thoughtless boy, and ever since I’ve been trying to stop sinking.

Last year I had free evenings. Now they’re so cluttered I can hardly find to spare. And I don’t mean cluttered with family matters – I’m talking about outside things impinging on them; the evening meal is barely finished before it’s off to this, or quick, someone’s coming round.

Last year weekends seemed long enough to get at least one or two things done. Now they’re a frenzy of activity, driving someone in the family from A to B and someone else from C to D, and not forgetting to pick someone else from E on the way. That’s if all the best laid-out plans don’t slide into some totally chaotic schedule.

Which is why I ask where the time has gone, or rather, who’s snaffled it?

The telephone is one culprit. This creature is superlative for getting messages across quickly, but it’s major power lies in its facility for making last minute arrangements. ‘Yes, we’ll pick up so and so on the way – no, we’ve got plenty of time…’

The car is another time-consuming beast. There’s a paradox. The worst thing about a car, especially in Dunedin, is that you leave leaving till the last minute. Consequently, you try and fit something else into the time saved which means you’re worn out before you go where you’re going.

Television is bugbear number three. I find it a very unrelenting tyrant. It steals so much time you’d use better for something else; then those other things have to be squashed around it. Whole evenings (and cricket-watching days) can be sacrificed to the monster, while the more useful things you’d planned are pushed onto tomorrow, making tomorrow a nightmare.

Most of our labour-saving devices reduce the time taken to do the job, but insist on a payment – the eating up of real relaxation and leisure. Constant Sunday trading is another devourer, making real rest an almost extinct species.

This year I haven’t had time to make a New Year resolution, but now I’m determining to set aside at least half an hour a day just to sit around and do nothing.

Even if I have to get up at five in the morning to do it.

My 1992 self would perhaps be appalled at the lifestyle we now live, where leisure is practically a forgotten thing. You have to make time for it – if you can.

Then there’s the cellphone, streaming TV – and of course, the computer.

Photo courtesy of the Noun Project: aartiraghu