Is 15 minutes the new hour?
Since when have people started making appointments at 10.45 a.m or 3.15 p.m.? Is the 15 minute block the new time block we fit our schedules around? Is rounding up to the closest hour outdated? Are we really that busy?
Wrapped in a false synthesis of time management, we recycle our spare time chasing the things that allegedly manufacture saved time. Vicious cycle. As Benjamin Franklin observed, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
What's the point of spending time/resources/finances on stress-relief agents when you could go to the root? Take stock of your time allocation, diet and regularity of exercise.
The wisdom of ageing
A friend recently wrote a short piece on Melbourne. "Melbourne, the Living City", she called it. In it, she outlined the importance of living in the moment, something you cannot escape in the way Melburnian's do life. She met an old Egyptian lady on the tram who recounted the story of her move from Africa to Australia, following the man who made her weak in the knees. Her parting words to my friend - "If you find it, hold it with all your life."
It reminded me of all the beautiful, elderly Italians, Greeks, Irish, Scandinavian people I met in my time in Melbourne. They would all end our brief encounter with a piece of advice. My favourite - "Don't marry... [ouch], stop hitting me, woman - he needs to know what he's getting into!"
Old age is so anticlimactic. Imagine a day filled with leisure - no goals, just waiting for the day you give it all up. There's gotta be a better way to balance out the stress of busy youth with the mellow submission of old age.
Hear me out - there's no right or wrong way to do this. There's a good way to do it and finding that escape route, that middle ground is what makes life so exciting. Talk to someone who knows - someone a lot older, wiser, someone who can smile at the end of it all.
