My life with my dog Sawyer went by way, way, way too fast. Even though I had him for 11 of his 12 years, it seemed like we’d just said our first hello before the time came for our final goodbye. I don’t think this is merely because we loved and enjoyed our life together so much. Other experiences that I enjoyed immensely seemed to go by much, much, much slower. Summer breaks in elementary school, the first few years of high school, and so on. Summers seemed to last forever when I was a kid; 2-3 months often felt like a year or more. A few years of school felt like an entire lifetime, even though I enjoyed it overall. How can that be the case when 11 full years with Sawyer felt like almost no time at all?
I think a huge part of it is how modern life is set up. Modern life is like a big conveyor belt constantly moving us from one place to the next without giving us time to rest and enjoy where we’re at. There’s so much pressure to always be chasing the next thing. The next event, the next day, the next job, the next promotion, the next career move, the next business, the next customer, the next paycheck, the next income stream, the next quarter, the next word, the next conversation. No time to rest, enjoy life, visit with loved ones, feel at peace, and just be for a while. No time to even appreciate what you’ve accomplished that you were striving toward for so long; as soon as that’s done, it’s onto the next thing.
Even hobbies aren’t immune to this. The pressure to constantly create and do is endless, even with fun activities. Even if someone avoids the pressure to turn a hobby into a business (more on that below), they can still feel pressured to be constantly creating through that hobby. Always striving to get better, always studying, always working on the next big thing with it, always learning, and always putting it above nearly everything else in life. Practicing rather than playing. Taking it too seriously instead of having fun with it. That can suck all the fun out and turn a beloved hobby into a boring chore.
It gets worse. So many people think that a fun hobby should be turned into a business. While this works well for some people, it’s a nightmare for others. Suddenly, an activity they once enjoyed exploring in their free time is now a source of income. It’s no longer enough to do it when they can, have fun, use it for stress relief, and not worry about what they do with it, where it goes, or what anyone else thinks about it. Now they have to pursue it almost constantly, make sure they do it as well as possible, find customers, come up with pricing information, make a website, manage several social media accounts, deal with detractors, and handle everything else involved with running a business. This can be even more stressful if it becomes their primary or even sole source of income. All of this in addition to living life, keeping in touch with friends and family, pursuing other interests, and keeping up with any jobs or schooling they might be doing. For many people who attempt to turn a hobby into a profession, they end up hating the thing they once loved.
This is one of many ways in which modern life often seems like one big commercial. There are so many attempts to sell stuff to us, even around meaningful, touching works (such as ads on YouTube videos about lost loved ones, guided meditations, etc). So many places and activities involve spending money instead of simply hanging out. Plus the more money we spend, the less is available for the essentials and the more hours most of us have to work to replace that lost money, which takes us away from our loved ones even more.
So many people spend the bulk of their lives attempting to make money. Some take this to the next level by working round the clock in the hope of making enough money to retire early. Even if they succeed, they still missed out on lots of time with their loved ones that they’ll never get back while they were working to get ahead. And it’s even worse if they fail; then they can’t retire early and they’ve also missed lots of precious time with their loved ones in their attempt to get more of it later. If they end up having to work overtime as a result of that failure, they’ll miss even more of those special, irreplaceable moments.
Sometimes adults do actually slow down and enjoy life for a while. A nice vacation with little to no itinerary, a long road trip with no particular destinations in mind, a hike along a mountain range that takes months and has no real timetable, etc. Whether alone or with loved ones, they really sink their teeth into the moment on these trips and make wonderful memories that last a lifetime. Unfortunately, many of them get caught up once again in the mad rush of modern life as soon as the trip ends. While such trips result in lasting lifestyle changes for a few, they represent mere momentary diversions for others, who may now feel even more stressed as they rush to “catch up” on everything they missed while they were away.
The breakneck pace of modern life is exhausting. It prevents me from enjoying what’s going on in the moment, keeps me feeling stressed out, and blocks a lot of meaningful interactions with the people and animals I love. It also makes it essentially pointless to work toward anything since I won’t even be able to appreciate something when I accomplish it; by then, I’ll be working toward the next big thing. Before I know it, another loved one has died, moved away, or gotten caught up in something that’ll keep us apart much longer than either of us want. Why is this a thing, and why is it so common? I’ve heard that people in ancient hunter-gatherer societies worked fewer hours and had more time with their loved ones than most modern humans. If that’s true, then what went wrong between then and now? Why can’t we have that same amount of time freedom? And what can be done to fix it?
There’s hardly any time for people to thoroughly grieve and heal from huge losses of loved ones before being expected to return to work, school, or feeling “normal”. A coworker from one of my jobs went in to work after taking his dog in to be put down that morning. I can’t imagine doing that as I’m still struggling almost two months after losing Sawyer. Everyone needs time to grieve, feel, heal, and recover so they can be healthy and avoid holding onto pain or passing that pain on to family members, friends, kids, coworkers, etc. Yet so often that crucial time is denied due to the pressure to constantly be producing something for… what purpose, exactly?
Until I graduated high school and started working, I wasn’t aware of any of this. Time moved a lot slower before then, even when I had a lot going on. I always seemed to have enough time for friends, family, everything else that was important, and plenty of stuff that was optional. The more years I’ve spent as an adult, the faster time has seemed to move and the less time I have for anything, especially the most important things. That’s why a few summer breaks felt longer than my 11 years with Sawyer. That may also be why I see this the way I do and why I believe so strongly that this has to change.
While I am concerned about all of this because I miss Sawyer, my concerns are also for the new parents who blink and suddenly their kids have moved out. For the young newlywed couple who says “I do” and the next thing they know they’re retired. For the kids who can’t enjoy everything great about being kids because they always have to be thinking ahead and have their whole lives planned out before they leave high school. For everyone who misses out on a lot of special, meaningful, and priceless moments with their loved ones because of how modern life is set up. Moments they’ll never get back. Moments that are replaced either by meaningless experiences or by things that are way less important than their loved ones.
Everything moves too fast, especially my life with Sawyer. I hate all the trappings of modern life that so often took me away from Sawyer. I wish modern life were much simpler so I could have spent more time with him and so that I can now spend more time with my loved ones while we’re all still here. Improving my time management skills has helped in some ways but there are some issues it hasn’t fixed. Almost everyone I love seems to be pulled away from me into different careers, locations, and activities. That means I end up spending almost no time around the people I love deeply while I’ve spent tons of time around people who’ve consistently treated me horribly. I’m still figuring out how to have more meaningful experiences and fewer trivial or painful experiences in my life. I don’t know what could be done on a large scale to make that possible for everyone who wants it but I hope whatever it is happens, and soon.