Our Mad Rush to Nowhere

While driving home from the City Cemetery, yesterday, I turned on the radio and scrolled through the stations to find a good tune; to my surprise, I found a Christmas song!
I am a Christmas enthusiast - and really get wrapped in the festivities - but that was a bit much, even for me. Tuning in to Christmas on the day after Halloween seems a bit of a mad rush; what about Thanksgiving?
That got me thinking about how much we rush through life; ready to jump on the next bus, eager to put the present in the past so we can focus on the future ahead. More times than not, we live in the wrong time zone. We either focus our thoughts on the past – and keep alive events that should by now merely be memories – or project ourselves in the future, as if the next event is secretly hiding the key of happiness we have longed for and not yet found.
We do this starting from very early on; as young tots we want to be big children, as children we long to be teenagers, as teenagers we wish to be adults. Once we make it to adulthood, we wish we could blink through the hard building years, so we can reach the point of being able to retire and enjoy the fruits of our labor, see our children grown, become grandparents.
We get so excited to discover what it will be like to live in the next stage, that we miss the wonderful opportunity of enjoying the stage we are in.
By making the future our present, our present becomes our past. The days we dismiss as uneventful - in favor of others which promise more excitement but might never even come - are days we will not get back.
It is time we slow down, and realize that life is a journey which should be taken slowly, step by step, not a speed race aimed at reaching the finish line.