Lessons from Life:  One thing I’ve heard comments about for almost as long as I can remember is the speed at which time passes.  From an early age I remember hearing that life is short and we must make the best of the time we’re given.    I agree now with this assessment and advice, but I did not always do so.

When I was young it seemed as though time crept like a turtle.  I can still remember thinking that I would never be able to say my age had two digits.  I was nine I wanted life to move faster.   I wanted to be able to say proudly “I’m 10.”   At that age it seemed like I was always in a hurry to get somewhere and experience something new.  Adults had control of things and I wanted that control too.  So, I waited impatiently for the years and thrills to come my way.  I had no money so I could only hunger for things, I couldn’t buy them…at least not yet.

Somewhere between age nine and my forties or fifties life started speeding up.  I had a job, a career, bills, and a weekly routine.  I established a schedule of what I would do each day of the week, so I made sure I finished everything on time.  It worked.

However, I believe that routine forced all the activities of my week into little slots which began rapidly chewing up my weeks.  I found I was doing my Monday things every other day.  And weekends whizzed by like a fastball.

I think I learned something after a few encounters with broken routines.  I discovered that I lost track of what day of the week it was and time actually began to slow down.  This  happened when I was on vacation where every day can be different.  Since each day had no familiar task linked to it, I lost track of my days.  And the weeks stretched out for me.  Time slowed down.

This led me to believe that the culprit for time-speedup is routine.  If we change our routines, we many not get things done on time, but it may actually feel like we have more time available each week.

I invite the reader to try it.  Try breaking your routine.  Change the way you go through your weeks.  If you always do a certain report on Monday to get it out of the way, try doing it on Thursday.  If you always have a date with your spouse on Friday, change it to a week night.  If you always exercise on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, change it every other week to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.   See if you notice a difference in the pace of your life.  I think you will.  When we break our routine, we open ourselves up to life’s challenges…and opportunities.  Slow your life down.  Take a break from your routine.  Life can be an adventure!