I am once again asking everyone to slow down.
Another calendar year is nearly two-thirds over and yes, time seems to be going faster than ever before. And like time running fast, so are many of us.
I’ve noticed something rather interesting lately on many of our local roads. When traveling on an open road between any of our local communities, when one oncoming car comes along, as often as not, there’s a second car following closely behind it. To most of us, that’s just traffic. I see two cars most frequently, but just as often it’s a string of cars behind that one lead car.
You find that odd, Rob?
Not odd, per se. Just another example of somebody having to go less fast than they really want to, just because there’s a guy in a car ahead of them going at a slower speed. I get it.
I’m in a golf league that travels all around northwestern lower Michigan every Wednesday. Nothing gets older than mile after mile of driving while looking at the back end of someone else’s car. In the scheme of things it’s a true “first-world problem”, but it’s not nothing. I’d love to admire the local scenery instead of the traffic, but that’s the rule of the open road. I just remind myself that once I’m home, I’ll be home the rest of the day so just back off a few miles an hour and enjoy the drive and not worry about the time it’s taking.
Time is such a crazy construct.
This will be my last column before Labor Day which once again begs the question of where did the time go?
On the other hand, as I drive the area’s highways and enjoy the area’s scenery, I remind myself that all of our local beauty is the result of slow advancement and equally slow receding of glaciers that made this place so cool. As I enjoy the most recent iteration of Lake Michigan, the prior versions like Lake Algonquin, Lake Nipissing, and Lake Algoma come to mind. If the planet has been around long enough for four different configurations of our favorite Great Lake, then why am I in such a rush? And, if all this amazing topography is temporary; at least in a geological sense, why do I hurry past it and not slow down enough to savor it one more time.
My remaining days are nothing when compared to the glaciers lifespans, but with that in mind, we all need to slow down and savor each one. Stopping time is impossible but to stop rushing through time is another story.
Maybe I’m the wrong person to be writing this because I’m at a point in life where time definitely is not money. I rarely have to be places sooner than I want to be and as I said before, once I’m home, I’m home. Hardly ever do I have more than one or two things on a daily calendar.
But on the other hand, perhaps I’m just the right guy to be saying this stuff. I’ve endured the busy years and lived to tell the tale. From experience I can report that slow and steady may not always win the race, it’s the better way to try. That, and the realization that even if you do get past this slower-than-I-want-to-go driver, you’re probably only a mile or less until you get behind the next slow car.
Maybe there are more glacially minded drivers wanting the world to slow down out there than you knew about?