Have you ever stopped at the end of each day to take stock? To look at how productive you were that day? What did you do? Was it worthwhile spending the time doing it?
I have heard people wishing that there are more than 24 hours in a day so that they can get through what they want to do. I guess things can be divided into " What you want to do" and "What you have to do".
The latter will have to come first and then you can go ahead to do what you want to do.
For retirees, I guess they have more time for the "what you want to do". Or do we really? I'm a retiree and I remember telling myself, " Oh, I'll do that when I retire." Now that I've retired, I find that I still don't have enough time to do what I want to do.
I want to read more, especially the different types of books that I'm interested in; I want to write poems, I want to write, full stop. I want to go back to experiment on baking, I want to go back to my handicraft.......oh so many things that I want to do now that I've retired.
Instead I find myself chasing time because there is still a lot on the "what I have to do" list. That eats into the time I thought I would have, having retired. Mind you, I've slowed down a great deal and I've become lazy too. What I could do very quickly say, 2 decades ago now takes twice as much time. So that steals away some of the time at my disposal.
Slowing down is a necessity as there is the fear of falling when things are done quickly and when one is old, bones don't heal as well or as fast, not when one is a diabetic to boot. I remember a friend's mother who fell and broke her hip bone and never recovered after that. She became bed-ridden and her health just went downhill very fast. Besides, one is not as agile as before.
Looking around at the things I've accumulated all these years is such a pain. How can I ever get rid of the clutter?
Where to begin? As my brother-in-law said, one's
treasures is another's trash! We were chatting about the
past, how we collected souvenirs on our travels and how
much we cherish them, proudly putting them on display.
He asked a good question. Do you think our children will
appreciate these momentoes? Probably not as they do
not hold any significance for them. To the collector, they 
evoke memories of the holiday they had. To others, they
are probably dust collectors that should be binned. In
other words, thrown away!
So now when I travel, I do not collect anymore souvenirs,
except for small gifts that are easy to carry home and to
give to family members. Trinkets for my daughters and
local edible treats that we can savour together with family
members when we get back home. Photographs are a must
as they capture the places that we've been to. On the other
hand, what will happen to the hundreds of pictures that
have been taken after we pass on to the other dimension?
They would have become more clutter.
Back to the question of time. When will the time come when we have to leave this world for the next one? How much time is there left? Is there enough left to let me do what I have not yet done?
On this note I think I had better do what I have to do and then do what I want to do, one thing at a time, slowly or fast, it doesn't really matter. What matters is to enjoy what one does and to treat each day as if it is the last. Right now it is time to start preparing dinner or there won't be anything to eat this evening!
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