‘I don’t have time’ – a reflection on how we are living

As the Russian actress Faina Ranevskaya once said, “Life is too short to spend it on diets, arrogant men and bad moods”. But this sentence shows only part of the truth. Life is so short that there’s no time even for the things we really love. This article wants to show that it’s not worth spending time and energy on other people’s advice and dreams. And may it all go to hell! That’s right?

O awesome.club I couldn’t pass up this beautiful text about the weather, written by the talented blogger Odonata Veter. We guarantee that after reading it you will have a lot to think about…

“I was visiting my mother and I started watching television.

A heavily made-up woman said: “All a true woman’s shoes must be, first and foremost, beautiful. Second, they must be elegant. The best thing is that they are also expensive. And if they are comfortable, you won the lottery”.

I love those moments when we are caught between depression and neurosis. When for a while everything in our head is calm and a welcoming silence is created around. And within this silence, we clearly hear our thoughts: “I don’t have any time”.

There are no more or less coherent arguments about this being my only life. Statistics show I’ll make it to my mid-80s at most, and more than a third have already flown by. If we rule out all kinds of accidents, like a brick falling on our head, then at best I have only half a century to live.

And you want me to wear uncomfortable shoes? Why don’t you also recommend tasteless food and boring interlocutors?

In childhood, I experienced two episodes of strong existential crisis. At the age of six, I realized that everyone was mortal, and that day I just couldn’t sleep, suffocated by the discovery. I touched my grandmother a few times, just to check that she wasn’t dead. She survived. I did that for a long time, and she died 10 years later.

The second time I reached the edge of the abyss was at age 12, when I was making a list of books I had to read in the next few months. I knew that one volume of ‘The 3 Musketeers’ would take about a week. But there were three books, plus many others. I had a vague idea about the existence of other authors and about the laws of multiplication. I did some math and came to the conclusion that even old age (i.e. up to age 30) I couldn’t read all the books I liked.

In both moments, I was so afraid that I quickly learned to deceive myself: “No, this is all a bunch of bullshit. It can not be. I’ll think of something.” That decision helped me get to sleep, even though deep down I knew that things weren’t quite like that.

Going to university, discovering the literature of the ancient world, medieval Europe, postmodern America and many other moments showed me that I would never be able to read everything. Also, going to family funerals proved to me that death does exist, but that doesn’t matter, the world is too beautiful to worry about anything but beauty.

It would be more or less bearable if there were only books in the world. But the longer we live, the more things we learn and, suddenly, summer nights, exotic fruits, French comedies, the sound of waves, city walks, hugs, music, cities hiding places, conversations until dawn, favorite work, nights in front of the fire, bike rides, afternoon coffee…

There is so much of it all that one lifetime is not enough. Still, if I choose just one thing, I won’t have time to live it to the fullest. If, for example, I decide that what I love most in this life are desserts, 10 lives is too few to try them all. Even if I show an iron will and discipline and eat, let’s say, two desserts a day, at 80 years old I won’t have tasted even half of everything that is only produced in my city, where there are hundreds (or thousands) of pastry shops .

And suppose that, in addition to taste, I think of other senses. What if, in addition to desserts, I liked flowers? Do you have any idea how many flowers there are in the world of botany? I don’t even want to search. When I enter Google I feel like I’m in a huge abyss, falling non-stop.

But why do I say this? Do you remember the story about a professor who would go to conferences with a jar, some rocks and sand and show everyone the importance of managing space? The idea was that the biggest was the most important, and so it should be placed inside the flask first. The rest, like sand, water and other small things, was the least important and so it was easily distributed, that is, it would go into the bottle without any problems.

My idea today is that nothing fits in life, no matter the order. And our role is not to worry about trifles, but about beauty🇧🇷 Even if you put a flask on the table, it can fill with air and light and dust, because that’s how life works in that flask we call home. A glass is neither half full nor half empty, it is always full in different proportions of water and air, liquid and gas, or Coke and whiskey, in my case.

Life is so full that a small person is always immersed in this abundance of options. And even if you choose only the good, she will also explode🇧🇷 You won’t be able to read all the interesting books, you won’t be able to kiss all the beautiful people, and you won’t be able to eat all the tasty things. It’s impossible.

The important thing is to know how to control time as strictly as possible, to be able to do as many things as you want. In a world of so many beautiful things, spending the little time we have on something stupid is irresponsible. Toxic relationships? Boring movies? Uninteresting projects? Awkward shoes? To hell with it all! And broccoli too.

🇧🇷
— You should wear heels, it looks super elegant.
– No, thank you.
– Because? (beginning to whisper) It’s because you’re fat, right?
“You know what… Yeah, that’s why.” Because I’m fat. God bless you”.