I recognize how fortunate I am to be able to take a vacation with my family and any sadness I feel at trip’s end is tempered by a true sense of gratitude and privilege that we can afford such luxuries at a time when all too many parents struggle to keep a job and a home and to provide for their children. However because up to now I have had limited vacation time away from a demanding job the parallel between the length of a vacation and the span of a lifetime is an interesting one to me.
I see through my children’s eyes and recall my own feeling that time seemed to move very slowly through life’s first phases. However little by little as responsibilities multiplied and those small aches of middle-age set in the passage of time seemed to accelerate. The French Existentialists understood this and wrote in fiction and essay form of the way in which man’s knowledge of his mortality (and the arbitrariness and absurdity of this condition) changed the nature of the arc of life toward that end.
The goal I have always pursued in my life is not to pretend that I have an infinite time on earth (or on a far lesser scale that a nice holiday will last forever) but to not let the certainty of an ending compromise the quality of the experience in the meantime. Viewed in this way endings are not to be feared but rather add to the intensity of and appreciation for the time we have.
Well said Tom. Life is like a birthday cake. When you are four if you divide the cake into four slices each slice is huge. When you are fifty-four if you divide the cake fifty-four ways those pieces become awfully small. I love the feeling at the beginning of a vacation. There is such comfort in knowing that there “is so much left” and at the half way point I start to mourn the loss of something that hasn’t even come much less that has been lost. I am working on doing better. I am excited for your new changes. I know that right now it feels like a phase of your life is ending and it is. But I also know that you will look back and realize that this was only the beginning. I wish you every happiness and much success as you move into the next exciting phase of your life.
I know exactly how you feel. I am still young don’t get me wrong just at 30. However the voyage from birth to 18 felt like an absolute eternity and the time it has taken to get from graduation day to today feels like a mere year. I’ve never compared that holiday midway point to life itself but I think it’s a very real comparison that in a way is a little bit scary as I get closer to the midway point of the average human life span. I guess it’s important though to come to the realization that we only have a limited number of days to make an impression on the planet and those we love because the sooner we make that realization the less likely we are to take a single one of those days for granted. I was a little shocked today when I got the company wide email from Jim Smith signed as CEO as over the holidays I had not really paid too close attention to the company. I wish you all the best and thank you for everything you’ve done or us.
I sure that you left a legacy in Reuters. Transform an Old Fashion Company into one of the most advanced ones in terms of product quality customer satisfaction and innovation. Despite the very hard times during your direction. I still remember the time and effort that you particularly gave us in Venezuela during hard times for us here. I wish you and your family good health and many success in the years forward.
Know what you mean… I’m on the same holiday as of December 12th… Sartre’s old credo that “Man is alone abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities… Without help with no other aim than the one he sets himself with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.” was useful for a while. But the fact is that the “law of hazzard” dominates and we are subject to getting swept up by circumstances beyond our control. So let me know if you ever want to get together in a Greenwich Village coffee house to discuss philosophy over an iPad tray.
Yes and I find the older I get the longer it takes to unwind when on Holidays. One week of contigious time off used to be sufficent now it takes two. Expect this may be bacause we are so connected to work it now takes about a week just to stop reading e-mail’s. Not sure if this is an addiction thing or just a bad habit :-). Wishing you the best in whatever you do next.
Very true. In fact I find the older I get the longer it takes to unwind when on Holidays. One week of contiguous time off used to be sufficient now it takes two. Expect this may be because we are so connected to work it now takes about a week just to stop reading e-mail’s. Not sure if this is an addiction thing or just a bad habit. Wishing you the best in whatever you do next
In his song “Don’t let the sun go down on me” Elton John talks about being “Frozen on the Ladder of My Life” you can probably relate to these lyrics having reached the top without necessarily finding what you set out to find when you embarked on this amazing journey. In your blog you strike me as a multi-talented polymath who’s trying to figure out his next move as his biological clock ticks seemingly faster. As you put it in this blog entry “the fore-knowledge is already there that this holiday like the others before it will come to an end.” One life isn’t enough time to let all the little fragments of your talents personality to wander free unencumbered by the expectations of those closest to you their rules and world view. Re-invention brings a host of growing pains. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? We’re all searching for the meaning of life on this planet. You’re not alone the first nor the last. Lio
Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. When one is conscious or has the “knowledge” of the certainty of an ending one has the ability or the choice (but one can deny it) to face a fate that is already written and predetermined in a subjective and personal manner. Camus was talking about revolt to live the absurdity to give value to life giving a meaning to it. In a certain way I have been revolted for the last 10 months aspiring to be like Sisyphe superior to my fate aspiring to appreciate my existence intensely. Because time on earth is finite and that time flies too quickly these days happy to discuss this further.
Nice article. Like any other Indian I always miss planning my vacation well ahead and now almost half way through my life I wonder whether I can get back those vacations that I could have gone. Atleast ever since moving US I am decent in taking my family every year at least to few places.
its true that when a long vacation begins time starts to slow down.. this is not really that bad ‘coz as human we are not machines… it lets us unwind and simply have a fabulous time with our family. It helps us to catch up on the lost times times that we were busy building our career…. it helps us to reflect on those actions and it makes us wiser and yes older… with age. But that’s personal development i guess.. anyway Wishing you well in your every moves!
Totally agree with your sentiments. I particularly dreaded the last days of a vacation. There are those times when you’re used to not reading emails and other job-related works that when holiday ends you just have to face reality back again. I guess that’s life. Got to work to pay the bills. Goodluck to us all!
For vacations I find my attention is like a whipsaw. Here’s the explanation… Before the vacation there is a lot of focus on taking care of the really important items before taking time off. This leads to a rush to move them as far forward or to completion before vacation. So when vacation starts my brain is usually still in heavy work mode. By the middle of the week and with some prodding from my wife and daughters I’ve usually worked my brain into vacation mode and this is when I feel time really slowing down. Regarding the time on earth question I think about what my “body of work” will look like when I’m 80 years old (arbitrary age picked here). Lately the idea of toying around with a life that could go on for a far longer time becomes very useful. We can tend to “put up” with situations we feel are short term or shorter term. If we lived for 400 years let’s say – which to me is a really long time – would we evaluate what were doing and be willing to experiment far more in life knowing that there are few things we would be willing to do for 100 years or more? Or would some of us just waste more of that time? The last thought that I use is one of reincarnation and a progress of one’s soul with questions like “What do I want to be as a person?” and “What progress can I make in this life that will transfer positively to a future life.” If one believes that life all comes down to our experience the question can be posed how do I progress in a way that allows me to maximize both my experience and the experience of others. When thought of this way it leads to the thought of “how can i use the physical tools – body brain the world around me” to maximize our experience. As a last thought I completely agree – time moves faster and faster each day. A grade school year used to seem like an eternity. A year now seems to move in the blink of an eye.