Savour

Have you found yourself struggling not to sleep? I mean, you are tired and should sleep, kind of struggle, but you want to do so many things you enjoy, and you have limited time as an adult to achieve them. This is especially true when you want to finish a series or a book you are binging on before the weekend expires, and you find yourself back at work.

I am positive this is an experience that is relatable to many of us. I remember knowing I had prize-giving day the next day in secondary school, and I was going to be receiving a prize or two, but the night before was when I encountered the book Twilight. The owner of the book was a senior who was going to be leaving for the term holiday after prize-giving day. So it was a matter of utmost priority to finish a 500-page or so book in one night.

This is one of many other binge experiences, either by myself, with friends, or with a group of people. Let me not start with Korean series. At some point during this binging experience, especially when you are watching a series, you find yourself saturated, your eyes may even be watering, your head feels slightly heavy, but all of those symptoms will pale in light of the goal to just get to the end somehow. Even if you have to fast forward certain scenes that you deem unnecessary, and then take it back when you realise you might have missed a vital bit.

We all have this sense of urgency for things we deem important. It is either we are anxiously anticipating the arrival of the event we have been looking forward to, from something as simple as being excited to start a new job, or waiting to wear your wedding gown and walk down the aisle, or just pure excitement to meet a lover or a friend. It could be waiting to board the plane for the first time on your way to a new country you plan to make a home for yourself in, or just waiting for vacation week to finally come around.

These all seem perfectly normal, but there is a hidden struggle in the anxiety we experience; it may be grounded in the idea that we are always running out of time, either temporarily or in a permanent sense and that sometimes makes us take decisions on the fast lane. Everything becomes a now-matter; we want to just skip to the end of a book or movie so we can move on after satisfying our curiosity, even if we do not know all the chapters or scenes that led there.

It happens with the concept of forever, too, in a proposed long-term relationship. We know the journey is forever, but we wonder how long forever will last and if we’ll make it to forever. Even while we ponder on these things, we are subconsciously aware that forever is a summation of every day, and it is relative to how much time we have, and because we do not have control over that, we spiral.

We want to know how much time to ‘waste’ on a person who is not reciprocating our energy or in a job we do not enjoy. It seems that this anxiety we feel is tied to wanting to be in control and somehow having a ‘good life.’ However, that robs us of our ability to savour the moments, to be in control by just handling the bits in front of us without all the perfect details or complete picture.

Have you noticed how everything overwhelming seems to feel when you narrow it down to one thing at a time? When you can dwell completely in the moment without exhausting yourself with all the other moments you want to experience. It is okay to anticipate a future with excitement. I think that imagery is necessary to sometimes put perspective on what one is experiencing in the present, but even this must be done with a certain level of detachment.

Living in the moment is the best gift we can give ourselves because it removes us from angst. Demagnify urgency and give breath to simple acts of inhaling and exhaling. In the end, we eventually get where we are going, even when it is not where we want to be. Plus, as you know, if you have been around a while, there is always going to be something to aspire to, goals more lofty than now, but it doesn’t change the fact that now will always be all we have until we get to the anticipated future. In the meantime, let’s enjoy riding speed bumps and all 😉.

Xoxo,

Dcconnoisseur.