Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
Years go by faster than they used to, I’m sure of it. The days and weeks are shorter too, although every minute seems to stretch out beyond belief. When I was younger, I realized at an early age that nothing would last forever.
One of my earliest memories is being 8 years old and crying because I knew some day, everything would change. Some day, I wouldn’t have my family close by me, and I wouldn’t live without a care.
Looking at my life now, it seems as though it’s all slipping through my fingers, like all I have to do is hit snooze on my alarm once, and I’ve lost an entire year in which my chance to do, be, and accomplish more has vanished.
It doesn’t take much to miss your chance, miss your shot. All it takes is for you to stop paying attention, for just a moment. And before you know it, everything has changed.
I wish sometimes that we had a guidebook, like a pamphlet from a museum, that would show us which years of our lives are the golden years, the ones we’ll look back on and tell our friends about when the best of us are gone and we’re drinking on a Saturday afternoon.
If we knew what our golden years were, maybe we’d be able to pay more attention, and enjoy them a little more.
I can see the golden years I’ve already had — the late, late 90’s when I lived in Ocean Reef and we’d go down to the beach to listen to Green Day and swim all afternoon. The years I was in a band that I loved, making music that mattered deeply to me.
But then I think, maybe the real trick is to act, live, and breath like our golden years are whatever we’re living, at any given moment. Maybe what makes them so great is that we’re present in them, to some degree, and by being present we can consciously forge ourselves the memories we’ll cherish.
If nothing lasts forever, perhaps the point of anything isn’t to try and make it last, it’s merely to focus on what we have and what we’re living while we’re in the moment.
Nothing we’re in the middle of will ever feel as good as our memories. We coat our memories with the paint of nostalgia and feel better about them, because the negatives sometimes slip away, leaving only the moments of joy.
Knowing that, we can give our current experiences a bigger handicap. We can put a little less emphasis on the crap, because we know that it won’t last, and when it’s over — we’ll miss it.
In the small hours of this morning, I woke up in a panic, suddenly scared of the idea that I’d grown old in a dream and lost all the years in between. I guess the fact that I’m scared of losing the time I have now, means it’s worth paying attention to.
I’m sure I’ll always have a pretty odd relationship with time. I’ve never understood how to look at it — circular? linear? — but I’m stuck dealing with it all the same. It’s comforting though, to understand that it doesn’t last forever.
It’s comforting because that gives everything more value. It’s all a limited offer, it’s all act now, it’s all a closing down sale. I like to think that makes it worth more, even when it’s all going to shit, as it is from time to time.
I never ask myself how everything could have been different. It’s such a tragic question, laced with regret and sadness and emptiness. What could have been would never have lasted anyway. Instead, I ask myself how right now would be different, if I just paid a little more attention.
Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
By Douglas Coupland