I have been struggling with time lately.
Here is the basic conundrum:
When I don’t have excess time, I wish I did. When I have extra time, I wish I had something to do with it.
Basically, when I am busy and everything is flying in different directions all around me, or perhaps I am enjoying myself in a zone, hyper-focused, I lament the fact that there isn’t enough time in the day, and that time slips by me so fast, as I silently march towards the grave on the steady escalater of time. However, when things are slow, and there is nothing to do, I bemoan the fact that I have nothing to do with my time, and what a waste of a moment! Of course, I could choose to fill it with something fun, but them I am back to the first part of my conundrum.
The upshot is that time is either filled or it is not. Those are the two states of time from my personal perspective. Time filled, moves fast. Time unfilled, moves slow. Time filled, slips quickly away into the past, but is fulfilling. Time unfilled sits steady, but is unfulfilling.
Thinking about it, I think time is meant to be filled meaningfully, and allowed to speed by. For the process of bemoaning the unfilled state stems from unhappyness (probably due to a chemical reality about fulfillment). Of course, looking back and bemoaning where did the time go, is equally not acceptable.However, I would think that the importance of enjoying your now trumps, looking back and bemoaning your past.
Of course, in everything that we do, if we allow mindfulness and new experiences to populate our lives, it will allow for a slight slowing down of time when we are in it.