30 INTERNATIONAL
Stuck in the Future The pressure of time
It is a gray day. Lots of rain and wind. Maybe just usual for Volda around this time of the year. While sipping my coffee at Café Geiranger, I make plans for the upcoming time in Norway. One thing is for sure: The time here must be used! Already more than a month is over and there’s more to come. The urge to experience something, to have fun and gather new experiences is definitely there. Not only today, not only here in my semester abroad, actually at any time in my life. Sometimes this urge to experience things is so strong that it makes me even a bit dissatisfied. Too many expectations of
MARS 2022
what is supposed to happen. Always the future in focus and less the moment in which I live in. On the other hand, there are these moments when I wish to stop time. In which I want time to never go by. At a party, a hike in the nature or just being together with lovely people. And what do I think in these kinds of moments? It’s the fact that the moment will soon be over again and just become a memory... Sometimes it’s challenging to really enjoy THE moment. But why? And does it even make sense to try so obsessively to live in the moment?
So when I take a step back, I realize there are two issues that concern me: Firstly, the urge to always want to experience more and better things and secondly, the feeling of not being able to fully enjoy good moments properly because my mind is already stuck in the future. It becomes obvious that somehow it is always the look into the future that apparently makes me feel a bit restless and discontented. What could be a reason for that? Perhaps the understanding about how we perceive time can provide explanations.
