I used to think running a four-minute mile was fast, a major league pitcher hurling a baseball at 100 mph was pretty quick, or a NASCAR driver taking a turn at 200 mph packed some gas.
Then we had children.
Maybe no day marks the passage of time better than that first day of school, especially nowadays, when you snap the obligatory picture and take a look as another academic year begins and you are struck, sometimes in awe, by the passage of time.
This year we have one firmly entrenched in middle school (7th grade) and the other in her first year of high school. How is that possible? How do the ticks of the clock add up – seconds become minutes, become hours, become days, weeks, months, years and before you know it… time appears to have made a quantum leap. When you accept this parenting job they leave out a couple of things: first they hide the manual, but second, they fail to tell you that time will move at the speed of light, faster than you ever imagined – and it is completely out of your control. These days it seems we try and control the world surrounding our children, maybe more than ever before, but time refuses to cooperate – it’s independent, stubborn, sometimes, especially when you take a look at that new first day of school picture, downright rude.
I sat at the home of some great clients the other night, the night before school started, watching their 3-year-old and 1-year-old daughters – and wondering how you get from there to here in our lives – with a 14 and a 12-year-old. I used to think it took a long time to grow up, at least it seemed to when I was doing it, (because I’ve stopped!!), then we had kids and the law of physics, chemistry, biology and all of science seem to collide and push time even faster, if that’s possible.
I think it is. And now, actually way before now, the challenge is to savor the moment, and at the very least – to pay attention – because time takes no prisoners, accepts no bribes and if given the chance will rob you of every last opportunity for awareness, if you don’t take the time to step up and be present. I know, because it’s always a work in progress for me.
Sometimes it seems life gets in the way of living – if that makes sense – and the great challenge is to heed the call, and never forget the passage of time is calling to you to stop, look, listen and engage because while we don’t think we are – or our kids are – I have photographic proof and most likely you do too – we are livin’ in fast forward. And I’d love to rewind real slow…
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark
Mark Brodinsky, Author, Huffington Post Blogger, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-brodinsky/), Financial Services
The #1 Amazon Best-Seller: It Takes 2. Surviving Breast Cancer: A Spouse’s Story, (http://www.spouses-story.com/)
Connect with Mark: markbrodinsky@gmail.com
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Love it man!
Thanks Jeremy!