whytimefast

It seems unthinkable that we are getting ready to enter
2008! It literally seems like a year or two ago that I
was sitting on the beach in the humid night air of Guam
on New Year's eve, bringing in the new millennium.
Have you ever wondered why time seems to go by so
much faster each year?

I have my own insights that I would like to share with
you; not only does it offer a plausible explanation for
this phenomenon, but it also alerts us to the fact that
we don't have as much "time" as we think, no matter
how much longer we may live.

Remember when you were a kid coming home from
your last day of school, excitedly looking forward to
your summer break? Isn't it true that the summers
seemed to last forever? And, do you remember how L
O N G the school year lasted in grade school? What
about now though? Don't you find that the summers
now seem to go by in a blur?

When you were 10 years old, 1 year represented 1/10,
or 10% of your entire life. If you are 50 years old now,
that same year represents only 1/50th, or 2% of your
life. Because of this, from your perspective of
subjective experience (which, I would argue, for most
people IS their experience) a year seems only 1/5 as
long as it did at the age of 10.

What does this mean if we apply this formula to
various periods of our life?

When you were 6 years old, a year seemed like three
years, thus, a nine week summer vacation seemed like
27 weeks!

Now, and I warn you, hang onto your wig for this one;
How many times have you heard someone say life
starts after 65? Now that you have a formula for how
you experience time, and how much you can expect
the passage of time to speed up with each passing year,
you come face to face with a very somber, yet
potentially motivating fact: At the age of 65 you have
only 5 % of your life left, in terms of how you will
experience time!

I don't care if you are 18 years old, and haven't even
graduated high school yet; you better go ahead and
retire NOW!

I can hear some of you now, "What do you mean
retire? I have only just started my career!"

What I mean is this: I watched my father trudge off to
work at 4:30 am each morning, coming home at 3:30
pm, coming home angry, upset and frustrated by a job
he hated. I do not remember ever hearing my father
say anything good about his job, never. When I was in
my senior year of high school in 1984, I made the
comment that I was going to go to work in the same
factory where he worked when I graduated. His
comment? He said point blank "If they put you to work
for me, I'll fire you!" As I look back now, that was the
only way he had to communicate to me the contempt
he had for his job, and did not want his son to fall into
the same trap.
Let me say this; I am thankful for the fact that I did not
have to go hungry when I was growing up; never had to
worry about having school clothes, healthcare.

I always knew I would have a roof over my head. I had
all of the necessities for survival- except one. The
anger that boiled within my father spewed over into
our home. Why wouldn't it? Do they teach you how to
deal with your emotions and workplace/family stress
in high school? Of course not. Instead we are forced to
learn how to work the wonderful algebraic
computations that 99% of us have never needed since
leaving high school. In short, my father endured nearly
40 years at a place of work he despised, so that he
could relax for the last 5 to 7% of his perceptual life as
far as time is concerned.

I offer this suggestion for 2008: STOP thinking about
the things you can do when you retire, or how you'll be
able to get into a hobby or do something you enjoy
when you no longer have to work for a living. Make the
decision today, that if you are not currently making a
living doing something you enjoy, that you are going to
do so in 2008.

I know, I know, someone will write and say "You don't
get it! I don't have a choice; I have a family, bills, a
house payment, and no education. I do what I do
because I have to." My friend Kevin Hogan would say
"Go tell that to someone else!" Myself, I would tell you,
"Go tell that to the thousands of immigrants that have
come to this country with NOTHING-absolutely
nothing, and have gone on to become prosperous
business men and women.

When I lived in San Diego, my wife used to go to get
her nails done at a nail salon owned by a Vietnamese
family; a family that lived in a 2 million dollar home
just 6 blocks from where we lived. Their story was
inspiring to say the least. They had come here from
Vietnam (all 7 of them) with little more than the
clothes on their back and a few hundred dollars. They
rented the space they continue to use now as they nail
salon, and all 7 of them slept in the back room on the
floor for two years. During this time, they were earning
and reinvesting all of their earnings into the business.
Today they live a very luxurious life and business is
booming.

My father did not have to fire me; after working for a
year in a rather relaxed and easy job at the same
factory where he worked, I QUIT. Not because the
work was hard, or the pay was terrible, I quit because I
watched 600 clones of my father march in to the time
clock each day, talking about how forward they looked
to the day they could retire. That was in 1984. In
recent years, I have attended the funerals of many of
the men who had finally reached retirement age, and
then had died less than 5 years later.

If this week's newsletter seemed a bit grim, that's what
I was after. Time DOES seem like it moves faster, and
will continue to do so at the rate described above. We
don't have near as much time as we think, not nearly as
much.

So, what would you do if you knew you only had 5
years left to live? 2 years? 1? Would you do
ANYTHING different? Whatever your answer; what's
stopping you from doing it NOW? There is only one
answer: FEAR.

Is this the year that you will overcome your fears and
embark on a life that you would be proud of having as
an obituary, or, will you continue to, as Thoreau was
fond of saying "lead a life of quiet desperation"?

There are really two kind of people, those who make
plans, and those who make excuses. As a reader of
After Hours, my intuition is that you are more
interested in making plans; otherwise you'd be doing
something "constructive" like playing video games,
instead of reading my newsletter.

The answer for doing anything you want to do exists-
the only thing that has ever stopped you is fear- the
fear YOU CREATE inside your head, by the images,
sounds and feelings you put together. Will you leave
that behind you as you enter 2008? I sure hope so.

I am proposing to you, that when you DO
SOMETHING YOU ENJOY for a living, in a sense, you
are already enjoying retirement. However, when you
are living like this, retiring is not even something will
enter your mind. Why would it? No one looks forward
to the day they can stop ding something they enjoy!

From my family to you, I hope you celebrate the New
Year in whatever way you find appropriate, and with
that, Happy New Year's!

Copyright 2007- Vincent Harris- All Rights Reserved