" Time’s Up" by Paul T

 

I remember when I was a little kid, in preschool, which was around 2010-2011, and I would rush to be first in line to lead the class to recess. Oh how I miss those days. Do I really miss those days though, or do I just miss the feeling of having no responsibilities, no stress, where everything was simpler, whether you were liked based on if you could run the fastest or if you were “chill”? Now here I am, a senior in highschool, going to college next year. Oh how the years have flown. I now have duties and responsibilities. Life is just not as simple as it used to be. I also have to make many important choices and decisions. One wrong choice or decision could ruin my life.

 

When I was a kid, my mother frequently sang me a song in my native language, arabic. In english it goes like this, “Today you are a boy, tomorrow you will be a man. Oh my sweet little boy will grow as fast as the flowers do during spring.” I remember I always asked my mom, “mama what do you mean I’m going to be a boy today and a man tomorrow”. That’s impossible, I thought. My thinking was limited back then. I wasn’t able to understand figurative language. Now that I look back at it, she meant that I was going to grow up very very fast which is true. That is exactly what happened. I could still remember yesterday and how I was coloring and connecting cubes in my second grade class. How I used to hate multiplying and dividing. Nowadays I’m doing math that involves symbols such as sin, cos, tan, theta, phi, and so much more things that my younger self would have probably not been able to comprehend.

 

I was a little late to realize it, but now, I am trying to make the most out of my childhood/teenage years. I want to enjoy every time period of my life. I enjoyed my kid years, 1-13, I am enjoying my teenage years, 1-18,  I want to enjoy my adult years, 18-50, as well as my elder/senior years, from 50 till death. Each time period in our lives is different from the others. Each time period has its own pros and cons. For example, as a kid I had way less responsibilities, less stress, and a lot of fun, but I had absolutely no freedom to do what I want. Now as a teenager, I have some duties (not really responsibilities but more things I have to get done, such as volunteering or  homework), and I have some fun, as well as some freedom, which is an awesome thing. I can go on walks by myself, or be trusted to drive, most of the time, wherever I want, or go to the waterpark with my friends without my parents fearing that I drown. I just want to enjoy every second there is to life. In the end, we all live once. It is something that will never happen again. It is something that takes place once in eternity.

 

Many people fear the concept of death, and I don’t blame them. But I like to think about it in a different way. We are the ones that get to die. I’d rather have a temporary life than to just be nonexistent. Sure life has its ups and downs, but it has to be that way or else humanity will never improve. In order to improve anything, we first need to learn it, and that’s the hard part. It’s only natural. There is one quote that I really like and it goes like this, “death is what gives life meaning”. It is because we know that we all have an end, that we try to make the best of our time here. If people are to approach this way of thinking when it comes to life and death, then people would be more grateful and approach life in a more positive way.

 

Our life is formed by the choices and decisions that we make and these choices are affected by the way we see the world around us, our perception of everything. I learned to make the most of the time that I have and I am sure that in the future I would be proud of this decision. Remember, time passes by very quickly. Much more quickly than you might feel or believe. Make the most of it, because soon, very soon, all of our times will be up. That is the reality of life. Make it a life having worth lived.