Do you always count the days up to the next legal holiday without being on duty? Or do you start as early as September longing for Christmas? And do you wish the weeks or months to hopefully pass by like an assault up to the next possible salary increase?
Many times we are really in too much of a hurry while feeling uncomfortable if we notice how time flies. We have no time for someone or something, or even for ourselves.
One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy. I love the thoughts of author Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015).
When I was still a teenager, I was longing for the time to be a grown up already. Later, I enjoyed listening to my grandmother’s stories such as “Once Upon A Time” or “When I Was Young” from her “yesterday’s life”.
After a couple of years, especially while observing that time really flies like a rocket to the moon, I always have the same question in my mind: Are the present hours and days less valuable?
These days between Christmas and New Year, between yesterday and tomorrow, I used to slow down and to relax. I even ignore my cellphone most of the time. I hide at a secret place to unwind.
The next turn of the year is soon around the corner. For most of us it’s the time to come to our senses. The future prospects smile at us already. What might the New Year 2023 bring us? Another hectic schedule of course! But hopefully also happiness, joy and health. Hopefully more peace.
Is life in the future easier, nicer, more charming and more fulfilling compared to the present? Many of us retreat into the past and forget their present existence. A possible topsy-turvy world of a golden youth tries to let us forget that also the past have had its share of disappointments, pains, tears, darkness, as well as desperate days. Dreamy and sleepy days – yes, lost days, irretrievable time… .
I am glad and happy being able to live a wonderful life as an expatriate here in the Philippines since 1999 – together with my family and some very good friends. It hasn’t been easy during the first years. Now we stand on our own feet, because we worked hard and adjusted very well.
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