Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes…RENT…“Choose-Your-Own-Adventure”-novel…rush hour traffic…six degrees of seperation

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
That’s what you have in a year. Actually, it’s 525, 960 – the extra 360 minutes is the quarter of a day you have extra. And every 4th year you have five hundred twenty SEVEN thousand and forty minutes. To live life.

Jonathan Larson knew this when he wrote the musical RENT about 11, 12 years ago. He knew you had to take what you have and use it, because no-one else will. But actually that is a lie. Other people WILL use up your 525, 960 if you don’t. They will take up your time with their problems, meetings, needs and making you feel less important than they are. If you let them, that is.

You see, in the end we all live in a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure”-novel. We are either making choices ourselves, or we are letting other people make itfor us – wether it is our parents, loved ones, children, teachers, friends, bosses or whoever. But there still remain somethings we choose for ourselves.

Like what food we like, what music we listen to, what movies we watch, what places we hang out at. Like some car ad said a few years back: “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your car!”

As I was sitting in rush hour traffic a day or so ago, I tried to observe the people in the cars driving past in the lane across in front of me. Everybody’s different. Everybody had a different place they came from. Everybody had a different place to go. Everybody had a different story to tell, a childhood, experiences, an education of some sort, and people they care about – “a year in their lives”…

And, considering the six degrees of seperation between people, it is actually striking that we know so little about each other. We spend time with our friends and chat about mindless or important stuff, but it is all stuff that goes on around us. We talk a lot less about what really matters to us. We are afraid of opening up because we are afraid that we wouldn’t be loved if our flaws are brought to the light.

As if everybody else is perfect.

But they are not. We are all humans, living and loving, liking and disliking, searching for happiness, really. Whether it is at work, at home, in relationships, we are all looking for that content feeling of: This is good! This is what I want! This is nice! I have never met a person that strived to be as unhappy as possible.

And we have 525, 960 minutes every year to obtain and maintain that goal, and every 4th year we have 527, 040 minutes, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this year will be better than the one before.

Time flies when you’re having fun.