Quote from John Cooper

Ive just been pondering the concept of time. I thought you couldn’t grab it, smell it or taste it but I think perhaps you can…when I see sepia photographs of the past or historical books – I can see time has unfolded (not to mention facebook photos of myself from a decade or two ago), when I smell fresh cut cucumber I’m taken on a journey back to my childhood on my Grandads allotment. He always use to grow me a ‘L’ for Lucy and I always left feeling super important, never fully appreciating that the straight cucumbers with little fragrance in the supermarket weren’t really the real deal.

Mainly, I think we all ‘feel’ time…the pressure or perhaps the weight of it. Routines seem to consume time, turning days into brief moments and daunting minutes still to come are granted a loss of several nights sleep. Its often something we never have enough of, a little like its sister Money. We desire it and then often, when we have it in abundance we aren’t sure what to do with it? Wasteful sunday afternoons spent in and out of sleep on the sofa watching films we’ve seen before, or long walks that have no particular start, end or anything in between.

We remember the good times and of course the bad, we celebrate specific times – birthdays, holidays and traditional moments throughout the year. We bank some memories for rainy days and look back with fondness or regret. But mainly, the times keeps ticking and we take it for granted. Never fully grasping its precious gift of now.

Perhaps you’re like me and try and live in the now, but that in itself seems to create a bigger void between you and it? I’m afraid I don’t have any wisdom for this…i’m still working it out, I do know a few things; meditation is more powerful than we’d like to think and easier than everyone else makes out, but ultimately the best way to make the most of the fragile time we do have is grasp it with both hands, travel, listen to music, cook, practise yoga, run…do whatever it is that makes you smile. Seek the sun, drink the tea, surround yourself with wonderful people that make you happy and go to bed each night knowing you lived the best day you could with everything you had available to you. After all, that’s all any of us have – right now.