Time Is Running Out

December 23, 2008 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

No, this isn’t an apocalyptic post. I admit that I find myself growing more concerned about all the upheaval in the world these days, not to mention the upheavals that may well be on the way, but I’m not alluding to any of that.

I just want to say how strangely accelerated time seems to have become lately, racing by faster and faster. The days and weeks flash by in a way that I find disconcerting. I know we each have an allotted number of days and we have to put them to the best use, out of love for God. And it would be natural to feel some concern over whether one is living out those allotted days according to God’s will. But this is different.

Time just seems to be going . . . faster. I can’t explain it. I wonder if any of you feel it, too. 
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5 Responses to “Time Is Running Out”
  1. Patrick Madrid says:

    My dear Dorothy, yes indeed, I’d like to think of myself as still “so young”! I’m not sure how “old” you are, but I’ll be 50 soon, so I guess I can safely say that I, too, have l-i-v-e-d a bit.

    I agree with you that, as we get older, time just naturally seems to slip by faster. My dad, who’s in his early 70s, has been telling me this for a long time, and I’ve been telling this to my children (the oldest is nearly 30) for a long time, too.

    But this is not what I’m talking about in my post. I mean that something about time lately seems different and oddly accelerated. Fr. W. Norris Clarke has an excellent chapter on the metaphysics of time in his book “The One and the Many,” where he points out that, as we make our way out from God and back toward him (the classical exitus/reditus of Thomistic philsophy) our perception of time, and even time itself, can change.

  2. Dorothy says:

    My dear friend – You are so young, still. Do you not know that the older you get the faster time goes? As they say, the toilet tissue goes faster at the end of the roll. We who have lived – and I mean l-i-v-e-d! – can attest to the inexplicably faster moving of time over the years. I mean, is it Sunday again already?

  3. Ciaran Butler says:

    Yes time does seem to be moving very fast.
    I mean it is nearly Christmas again already!
    This rapid movement of time has put me into a
    “so little time, so much to do” mood.

    I do believe that I heard Fr. John Corapi once say that time seems to go faster as you grow older.

  4. Charmaine says:

    Yes, yes! Just had this conversation with my mother recently, and we both have been sensing the same thing about how oddly time seems to be zipping by.

    There’s been an unusual sense of urgency/unrestfulness (with a little despair thrown in!) that has gripped me over the past 6 months or so, and with time passing by so quickly…well, let’s just say that I NEED more time. 🙂

  5. Adoro says:

    OK, sounds strange, but I’ve often been “feeling” (wrong word, just can’t find an accurate one) that I’m not going to live very long. I’m not depressed, I KNOW I value my life (because I want to avoid life-threatening activities like driving on black ice!). I don’t have a sense of “time speeding up”, although I do have a sense of my life getting away from me, which is a different thing.

    BUT…I know other people who have also had the sense of knowing they will not live into old age.

    Is that it? Is it something different, or part of the same thing?

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