A few days ago, a friend of mine said he'd stop time just to watch TV. Granted, it sounded pretty stupid, but as I had just spent the day running around, dealing with too many classes and trying to fit in too many unnecessary activities, I knew exactly what he meant.
Don't we all wish for stupid things like extra time to watch TV? We all wish we could take a break from these lives that move too fast, requiring that we accomplish so much without taking time to sit and watch and think about what interesting stuff we're doing or how much fun we're having. We just keep moving.
It's like watching a complicated movie but not having the option to hit the pause button and take a minute to figure things out. Too much is happening, and it's happening too quickly.
Obviously, it's worse for some people than others. Some poor fools run through their days not even realizing how much they're doing and not even knowing enough to wish for some peaceful TV time.
I knew a girl like that once. Actually, I had the opportunity to share a living space with her last year. This girl was a puzzling mystery, an unstoppable routine machine. She never stopped, never rested, and never just had nothing to do. From the moment she woke up, the routine began. She took her shower. Then she ate a bowl of the same healthy cereal in front of her computer, checking the news from her hometown. Then she put on her 50s-style moo-moo bathrobe, took her baskets of stuff into the bathroom, and spent exactly 45 minutes getting ready for the day.
And that was only the morning, the pre-routine routine. This girl spent her entire life putting her coat on just so, along with her perfectly matched mittens, hat and scarf.
She had an organized, weeklong study schedule for every single exam she took. She did the same workout at the gym everyday at the same time. She ate the same lunch every day, the same bag lunch she's eaten since she was seven.
This girl lived by the clock. She wouldn't watch a movie after 10 p.m. on Saturdays because she needed to wake up early the next morning to beat the Sunday laundry rush. But even worse, she had her whole life planned, her dream to be a doctor since she was twelve, a dream her hallmates heard about every night in the bathroom, as she did her nightly routine wind-down speech.
Though this girl made the lives around her more stressful, I like to think that she alsotaught those of us in her path a little something about life. She taught us to wish for time to watch TV, to lie in our rooms with nothing to do, dressed in sloppy pajamas and missing a meeting.
But the wish is not enough. The dream isn't enough on its own. We can't just think about stopping time; we have to do something.
Some attempt this by doing nothing, rotting their lives away in an attempt to appreciate the little, seemingly meaningless things in life. But that never works; they get bored, and they end missing out on a lot more than they set out to catch.
Some escape to fantasy worlds. Some take pictures all the time and keep endless journals to preserve their lives. Some spend so much time thinking about how they'd like to slow down, that they forget to watch what's in front of them.
My own newest plan to stop a little time now and then has been to enroll in a Stress-Free Yoga class. I hoped to learn some proven relaxation technique, forget about this stressfully moving life and, you know, stop a little time twice a week.
But to my dismay, naturally, this class is one strangely stressful activity. Only in Yoga can one become so utterly aware that her arms are about seven inches longer than they should be, or that her left calf is clearly deformed. Only in Yoga can one become so horribly aware of one's own uncoordination.
Thus, I have managed to actually lengthen time on Tuesdays and Thursdays " Yoga can be quite stressful, my friends. Just like the others, my plan to relax, to stop time has failed miserably.
So I was sitting in the dorm after Yoga, on the verge of just giving up completely and starting my own psycho morning routine, when my friend starting talking about his TV-time dreams.
And that's when I got it; that's when it all made sense. We don't need Yoga or fantasy worlds or rotting pajama days, or even TV. Just sitting there, listening to a good friend say something ridiculous, was enough to stop time completely for me.
