24hour race against time:
The human race is complex, often perplexing, and definitely cruel but mostly loving comes through despite the overwhelming evil that threatens to extinguish our lives.
As humans we spend so much time running around, chasing our pot of gold that never existed except as a mirage.
You are always trying to beat the clock and racing against something that you simply have no control over.
From the moment you wake up, you start the race.
You race to get yourself done, to get the children ready for school and shout and raise your voice when the children are too slow and call it dawdling or faffing.
Now it’s in the car or taxi racing against this Big Ben type clock you envision in your mind’s eye. Your furtive glances at the clock and your anxiety levels rise because there are a few more cars on the road today or traffic seems a bit slower. Arggh! You gesture at the slow driver, you hoot at the taxi and swear at the driver weaving from lane to lane.
You’re 5 minutes later than what you normally are. Your hands sweat, now you’re not concentrating on the road but worrying about what you will do once you get to work.
You are racing around so much at work that you have forgotten your coffee was there. Now it’s cold but you don’t have time to warm it or make another cup. Meetings are scheduled and you are running behind time. You can’t be late for the meeting it won’t look good on your performance review. You forego the hour you have for lunch because there’s so much work to do. Another cup of coffee sits abandoned and iced on your desk.
Home time but first it’s the race to the shops to get bread and milk. Back to traffic and racing against time to beat rush hour traffic.
Finally, you are home and your shoes are dropped at the door, the children need your attention and you wish they would hurry up and finish the story they were telling you about their day at school. You glance at the time and realize you are losing the battle. Time is winning and you need to play catch up so as if in a time warp, it’s children to eat, bath, sleep and phew! Now you can finally breathe. There’s still time.
Or so you think but your partner now wants some attention. Oh no! You’re so exhausted! You have been struggling to snatch time away for yourself! So back to glancing at the watch! You can squeeze an hour for your partner. You will watch your favourite programme tomorrow or start reading the book you bought more than a month ago.
It’s now 10 pm, where did the time go to? The days are flying by and you are trying to fit some time into your busy schedule for yourself.
Stop what you are doing right now and take a 10-minute walk around the house. Ignore the toys lying around, ignore the dirty dishes, ignore the house cleaning and just breathe.
This amazing race that you entered into is not what you signed up for. So why are you running it?
Would the world stop right now if you decided to breathe and take just 30 minutes for yourself, grab a glass of wine or finally make that coffee and train your brain to simply switch off. Tell your eyes that the mess you see isn’t there and you can clean it tomorrow or on a day where you have less to do or better yet, let the family chip in but opt-out of the race because you’re running against something you can’t ever win against.
Stop comparing yourself to others who seem to handle it more efficiently than you. There is no comparison because you have different paths and journeys and don’t forget to say I love you to the family. It’s important to realize that you are the fulcrum around which all aspects of your life revolves and if you need to shut it down for maintenance, then do so.
There isn’t an amazing race, only an amazing you.
