The subjectivity of time

Time is a very subjective thing.

When you're looking forward to something it seems to go so slowly. You count down the days and it seems like forever away, all the anticipation and excitement.

Consider summer holidays when you're a child. You look forward to them for so long, you can't wait to finish school and enjoy six weeks off. It goes slowly at first, just a long summer ahead. But by the end of August it's hard to believe it's almost over, and it suddenly speeds up.

And when there's something you really, really don't want to happen...time suddenly seems much shorter. It goes by much more quickly. 'A couple of months'. That can seem like ages away if there's something exciting planned in 'a couple of months'. But if it's your worst nightmare, 'a couple of months' suddenly seems so short, it's not enough time, and it's so quick.

The thing about time is that sometimes it's hard to live in the present. We live in the past, going over and over old times, or we live in the future, worrying about what's to come. But sometimes the best thing to do is take each day as it comes, to live in the present and to take time to enjoy things as they come. Because one day something hits you out of the blue and your life changes forever.