Dear father time

William Lou
April 2, 2015
This article was published more than 2 years ago.
Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

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Maybe it’s the time of year, or a buildup of stress, but I have to get something off my chest. Lately, I’ve been noticing a big, huge clock hanging over my head again, all day, as I rush from one thing to the next.

I have to tell you that I’m trying my best. Even though some days feel like an obstacle course as I try to hit all my marks, I’ve gotten the hang of this time-management thing and coordinated my days to remember when everything closes, when the buses leave, and dozens of other things that exist within your linear time frame. But life is starting to feel like everything is scheduled from morning to night. There is no spontaneity, and no time to even go to the washroom without throwing everything off. There is no joy going about the day when you feel like time is literally whipping us to get from one place to the next in a maze of never-ending meetings and obligations.

I know not all of this is your fault. After all, you aren’t spatially extended and your hourglass simply keeps track of our world. It’s your job to remind us that we can’t do everything we’d like. Stacks of books and endless YouTube videos are there for us to choose from, not to consume in its entirety. Then again, that works both ways. Sorry, but I haven’t learned how to juggle multiple things while balancing a rubber ball. It may look manageable but handling a full-time course load and job search leaves almost anyone spent.

It also doesn’t help that daylight “saving” time is hitting us now. And I don’t really see what I’m saving when I lose an hour of sleep. Especially when we get up during cold mornings, which are now once again dark. Yes, it’s nice to have 25 hours in a day that one time in the fall, but it hardly seems worth it when you ask for it back in a few short months.

With all this talk of mental stress, I have begun to feel that it’s not me, it’s actually you. Even as we do most things “on time” the people whom we inevitably disappoint only see failures, not attempts to bend space-time as we race against your clock. I know there’s nothing you can do, and you’d say it’s out of your hands, but just be glad we can’t switch places. As we calculate the years in our youth and maximum number of seconds in any given lifetime, please show us some respect. You’re a hard taskmaster, and when you’re finally done with us all that’s left is to meet the one in the big black cloak with the big scythe.

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