The clock is always ticking

Time is the strangest concept. Who decided that as soon as it becomes dark the world has to go to sleep. Just to think the other side of the world is waking up as your head hits the pillow goodnight. It often strikes me how much importance time has in our lives. A split second can change someone's life forever. That tiny moment of the second hand of the clock moving that fraction of an inch and everything can change. To think that every second that passes we will never ever get back. We can't turn back the clock no matter how many times it's done within fiction. Every tiny action we take or word we speak in that second, has the potential to change not only our lives, but the lives of the people around us. I guess that links to the idea of fate. I can't say I definitively believe everything is predetermined, but I do believe that everything happens for a reason; even if we never find out what that reason is. It's the tiniest details that always get me when you look back on the past. You hear the stories of how couples met, and it was only by that small slither of a chance that they are together today. My parents met on an organised trip to a concert and ended up sitting next to each other on the bus. If they hadn't have sat next to each other I wouldn't be here today. It's astonishing how tiny the details of the past can be that can bring you to the point of reading this very post today. Such as near death experiences... we've all heard of cases where people have been seconds from death and manage to escape, right place right time and maybe without even knowing. No, I'm not talking about final destination, but you get my drift.

It's negative things too though. You know those pivotal moments of feeling like absolute crap because you have been dumped by your partner for example. Yet in months, maybe years, you look back with a different perspective and see why things didn't work, knowing it was for the best. And why is that? Because time is fundamentally a portal of change. We look back on things that happened in the past with a different perspective because we ourselves are different. Every day we change. Noticeably or not. One day we'll suddenly be 70 years old and wonder where the hell our life has gone because time is the most powerful and manipulative thing in our lives. It's the foundations of how we live without us even realising. We convince ourselves we have all the time in the world. We feel as though it's something that we control yet in reality it controls us. Think about it... we get up at a certain time, we should have lunch at a certain time, eat our tea and then go to sleep before it gets too late. We live by the hours that pass us because were always looking to the next event, the next thing we should be doing. We live in a world where everyone likes the idea of living in the moment, yet very few actually take that step and grasp every opportunity. We live day by day rather than second by second, counting down the days until Christmas or a birthday and gradually years turn into the equivalent of minutes. I've always thought time goes quickly but with technology and our ever growing awareness of it; it flies by even quicker. I can't count the number of times I'll come onto the computer and when I look at the time 2 or 3 hours have passed without me even realising, and it's scary. That's how I imagine to see my life one day when I'm older, I'm scared that one day I'll ask myself where the hell did it go?!

That's the motivation that keeps me from making a decision about life. Figuring out an answer to the famous... "What would you like to do with your life?". They mean career wise but I can never find an answer for that question other than just enjoy it. I don't want to look back one day and regret not doing more with my life, which you hear happening so often. So I decided when I arranged my travels that I am going to live. From that moment and from every moment since I've been home, I have the motivation to just make the most of life. My travels changed me and, as you may agree it's hard coming home after being away anyway, so 5 weeks away definitely had an effect on me. On my travels I didn't become a new person. I just became the person I was meant to be, who was hiding under who I was being, but not living. I have become really deep, as you may be able to tell, and changing so much then returning to somewhere that hasn't changed a bit has been difficult. I can only compare it to trying to fit a jigsaw puzzle piece into the empty space that looks right but it just won't fit. And coming back to reality is hard when you've had the best 5 weeks of your life but I'm staying positive. I've already planned a trip to Canada to visit the most amazing best friend I met while traveling, and I find that keeping my mind on my plans of future trips is keeping me from the dreaded future of trying to figure out a career path. When I say to people I'm planning to get a temporary job, save up to go traveling, then return and do the same again, they say it's ridiculous and you can't do that for the rest of your life. It's not my life long plan but its for sure a momentary one for the here and now, and all I want to know is who says I can't?! Just because I'm not taking the conventional path and going to university then finding a dead end job I'll be stuck in for life, its a big thing trying to do something individually while everyone around me is doing the same thing but I'm doing what makes me happy. Happiness is of fundamental importance when it comes to enjoying life. If doing this, even temporarily is making me happy, I'm not planning to sacrifice that for the expectations of society and other people, anytime soon.