It is 7:36 PM on Thursday October 5th, 2017.
I was reading Reddit today and came across an article about “death from overwork” in Japan. The comments were filled with people who also put in a lot of hours with some of them finally finding a 9-5 job. It made me realize how lucky I am to work from home. Today I also attended a travel fair which got me out of the house and made me realize how cocooned I have been for the past six years. Everyone at the event was so young and I was confronted with how quickly time passes.
I spent the majority of my 20s in Asia. In my 30s I came to San Francisco and still considered myself relatively young. Then, out of the blue I hit 40 and everyone at the companies I visit are so young! It is as though my aging didn’t happen slowly and gradually but overnight. How could everyone now be 25 and I’m 40?
One of my colleagues also made the comment that it seems as though the years pass more quickly the older you get. This is absolutely true. Once you have kids the majority of your free time is devoted to them and so it seems reality ‘speeds up.” A year when you are young takes a very long time but when older seem to just fly by.
I keep a ‘time marker’ which is just a pumpkin left over from Halloween. When the holiday is over I put the pumpkins out past the fence and over time most decay and fade away. One of the smaller ones was not cut and is still there, but shriveled and gray. Looking at it reminds me how quickly the year has passed and now here we again in October ready to celebrate another Halloween.
I look at my old friends on Facebook, many of whom I’ll never see in person again. Many have aged going through many years of difficult life experiences. Gone are those young, wide-eyed high school kids excited for the future. The future was not so kind to them and now instead of unknown opportunities, many paths have been shut and they are relatively stuck by the weight of two decades of decisions.
Many paths are closed now to me as well. I have a house, a family, a job and cannot just make radical changes should I want to do so. I am content however because I made good decisions and was able to experience very much of the world. The accumulation of these decisions have lead me to where I am now and I have no regrets. I do miss the excitement of the unknown future however when many paths were open to me. But such is life.
It is now 7:47 PM and time for bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a workout in tomorrow morning. I’ll work, then go to karate and go again on Saturday morning. The weekend will soon come to an end and a new week begin. Time will continue to march along.
