'A poor life this.....'

We are all living in our own little time capsule as we race our way through life looking for that ultimate destination – and never enjoying the journey.

I heard a theory a while ago about how quickly time moves – and how it differs for each person.

Through the eyes of a four-year-old child one year is a quarter of their life. It seems to take forever for holidays or Christmas to come around.

For a 60-year-old adult one year is a 60th of their life – significantly less.

This, apparently, is the reason why time seems to pass more quickly as we get older.

But no matter how slowly or quickly time passes the trick is to make every moment count.

But instead we tend to get wrapped up in stories about what has happened to us in the past and worries and concerns about what might happen in the future.

And because of this we never live – ‘in the now.’

My wife and I recently returned from a holiday in Rome. We stopped at a famous tourist spot for coffee and my wife caught me staring into space.

She asked what I was doing and I replied “ I am trying to live in the now. I just want to absorb everything that’s going on and commit it to memory.”

Living in the now can be hard.

We need to stop frantically rushing around and doing things to make us feel busy and worthwhile.

We need to stop.

Now is exactly the time that you can influence what happens in the future.

But now is also the time to enjoy.

Poet William Henry Davies was right when he said:

“A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.”

Take some time today to be in your ‘now.’

Take some time to just ‘stand and stare.’