Time is a funny thing. Not funny ha ha — funny confusing – makes-no-sense funny. Time when you’re 23-26…7…8 is a scary thing. Not shake in your boots scary — scary like you have no concept of it and yet it controls you scary.

I notice us stuck in this “life’s too short” but “we’ve got a long way to go” mode. We know this is only the beginning of a long journey, that people are living well into their 100s, that Moms with 6 kids change careers at age 50, but we still can’t quite see past 27 – on the odd days at least. On the even ones we’re convinced we could die tomorrow, sure everyone we pass on the street is after our very same dream job, and firmly believe missing one Friday Happy Hour is the difference between a life alone and the person we’re meant to be with.

It has a lot of implications – this time mind fuck. We do things in the name of time, create time lines, and segment things by time. If we knew exactly how long we had to go we could properly divide all the important goals and friends and years in various cities. But we don’t – so we have to guess. And what do you get when you add pressure to guessing? A shitty SAT score.

As logic and one particularly level-headed friend of mine would have it – we should ignore time and simply do what’s best for us. He would say making decisions in the name of time that aren’t really the right decisions ends up a waste of time which makes doing them in time’s name null and void. It’s logical, you just have to read it a few times. Does that make taking risks and setting goals a waste – no. It makes promising yourself you’ll have a child before you’re 30 dumb. It makes not starting a career in writing because you spent 120K and 4-years on a business degree silly. It makes staying in a relationship because you’ve already put 5 years into it dangerous.

Easier said than done. Living in the here-and-now is an acquired skill – and it’s up against a pretty powerful American machine that values 16-year-old Pop stars and the “40 Most Powerful Executives Under 40.” For this life issue: the baby steps approach applies (dissertation on the fact that there are really only two life approaches – Baby Steps and Band Aid forthcoming).

Here are mine:
-No more calling 27 my scary age
-No more referring to college as “the greatest time of my life”
-No more holding on to things because they’ve “always been that way”
-No more going on dumb dates because I’ve “only been on X dates since college!!”

More to come when I have more time to think about it. Have to meet clients for drinks because it’s important to my progress at this company, and I’d like to be in a directorial role before I’m 30. Plus the person I’m meant to be with could be there…