To Witness Life Passing in a Fraction of a Moment

Costa Rica gives a person plenty of time to contemplate many aspects of your life and that of life which happens around you.  Remember the last time you spent a moment to give a respectable minute or two to consider the passing of time and the direction of your life as it correlates to this passage?  Most people don't, because the next priority interrupts such deep thoughts that are given a lesser importance. 

Don't forget to pick up the milk with the bread! 

We are all too busy with demands of a modern culture to seriously consider how quickly time goes by.  We speak in intangible references regarding the passing of time.  We question how time passes based on a moment that has already passed.  However, we don't watch time pass in the present to gain an appreciation of how quickly it truly goes by.

I recently have been bearing witness to the closing of a day.  Sunset viewing is a common priority on the west coast of Costa Rica.  Take a moment to step out on to the beach to watch the end to a moment in your life.  My latest sunset viewing gave me a new perspective.  That moment, I chose not to watch the ending of anything, but the realization of the speed that life happens to move at.

There is a reason that people chase sunsets.  Sunsets educate us on the delicacy of time by letting us know there is but a fraction of a moment to enjoy this daily phenomenon.  A sunset lasts for roughly 2 minutes once it hits the horizon.  Some regions of the world during certain parts of the year may witness a 4 minute sunset.  The amount of time varies, but all-in-all, it's always short.

This brief moment, I contemplated the swiftness of how quickly the sunset chose to leave me that day.  Why did it have to pass so quickly right in front of my eyes?  How does this correlate to the time in my life?  More  importantly, the present realization that every other fraction of time moves at the same speed of a setting sun.

I have a new appreciation of sunsets now.  They remind me that the present is short, the future is quick to pass, and the past is the ruler of time. 

Are you doing everything you want with your life?