Lamenting About Time

I still believe it is a sign of age. Reminiscing about the past and talking about the impending old age become more frequent as one gets older. Come on, when you are in your primary school, you hope time will pass by faster, so that you can do things on your own. Then when you are in your teens, how often to reflect and brood over the past memories in your childhood? When you are in your early twenties, you will think that people who are past their 30s are already considered ancient.

However, when you are in your late twenties, you start to feel the first sign of age, when you take longer to recover from your common ailments, such as flu or cough. You will also start to recall more and more fondly of your more havoc lifestyle in your school days where fear or beauty sleep are practically non-existent in your vocabulary. You start to look towards the big 3-0 with dread. You only think people who are in their sixties as being ancient. During those times when you are engulfed by work, time really flew by at the blink of an eye. Come year-end, all the unfulfilled resolutions would again cast a grey cloud over the festive mood.

We were working late again and my boss' boss dropped by and lamented that he seemed to pass his career prime and approaching the big 5-0. He counted the number of forecast and budget exercises that he had gone through and could not believe the numbers. My boss chipped in to comment that she used to think people in their thirties were old, now she felt that people in their fifties were still ok. My boss' boss added that he now paid more attention to obituary as there seemed to be more of his peers leaving this world.

You will be surprised at how all these complaints about lost time can be severely demoralising and depressing. Yet, it remains constantly as a nagging thought because time will always be a limited resource. If you feel that all these sound extremely foreign, congrats! You are probably still basking in your youth with all the parties and fun. If you are busy nodding your head with each paragraph, welcome to the club. All is not lost, we can still make up for as much lost time as we can. If you are in the mood of chatting about the past, you can always count me in and we can happily reminisce over tea and scones on a lazy afternoon.