Robert Nordmeyer: We cheat ourselves by constantly rushing through life

I came to that realization recently when I walked through our living room and caught the sound of our clock ticking away. It’s one of those old-fashioned kinds; hands pointing to numbers on a face and a second hand ticking off each second. I was somehow drawn to that intriguing ticking.

And as I stopped to pay closer attention, it dawned on me that I was literally listening to my life slipping away. That, of course, triggered a bit of a philosophical musing. I visualized each tick being placed in slow motion, showing the exact movement of my life’s phases frame by frame.

During each tick, what had been of me at that precise moment no longer was and would never be again. Each tick presented a completely different me. That clock was doing a type of MRI on my life’s involvement and I could only stand there and listen to each layer of my life being sliced off and discarded.

Recognizing this unique aspect caused me to become acutely aware of the power of time. This elusive element in our life dictates every facet, every aspect, every turn of events. How we manage it dictates how we will move through those phases, through those seconds being sliced off and how we will control those essentials affecting our life.

For those who want time to speed up, they must realize they are cheating themselves out of a valuable part of living. If the focus is only on achieving instant gratification, then all other significant rudiments of a rewarding life are snuffed out.

Where does speed bring peace of mind or serenity or relaxation to a life that is based strictly on expediency? How can anyone feel the joy of a spring day or a misty rain or the cooing of doves when the pace of their hurried lives doesn’t allow for such little pleasures? Where, indeed, is the true gratification?

Before we had things like computers and smartphones and instant gratification, we had moments of leisure and time for reflection. We had daydreaming, where one could stare out the window and let the mind wander into fields of the maybe. There was once a period in our history when life was slower and people could take time to just sit on their front porch and swing back and forth and relax.

More and more we need to stop and listen to an old-fashioned clock tick off the seconds and reflect on the impact of that sound. We need to realize that time is a fixed element, and no matter how hard we try we’re not going to change it. And with that realization we need to come to grips with how we are cheating ourselves by hurrying through it so quickly that when it’s all over we’ll be looking at our past and wondering how and why we got to the end so soon.

Find a clock that ticks. Listen carefully. It’s telling us something.