Is it just me or has the earth begun to revolve faster and so days run into each other, somersaulting into months? Did NASA forget to let us into some secret information? Oh my goodness, we’re already at midyear!!! I took an informal survey among friends, family, and co-workers to find out if running short on each day is a function of age. It seems that everyone no matter what age has the same observation or complaint if you’d rather call it that.
I confess I’m trying to keep up but with little consistent success. You’d think that the longer days of Summer would help me out but I just pile on more and still don’t catch up. So let’s press the pause button for a moment. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, a timeline is a planned interval of time in which something should be done, for example, get a college degree or get married. We’re kind of given expectations when we’re very young that we must journey through certain timelines based on age, sex, birth order or even financial status.
Webster Dictionary states that a deadline refers to having a certain time or date by which a task or expectation must be completed or met, for example, to have a child by age 30 or before. In many instances, the word deadline is clear in its implication that if we don’t comply we will be faced with some unpleasant consequences. 
But when we live for the deadlines and within the timelines don’t we start to feel like our lives look like a graph in Math class? The pressure to keep moving through our daily deadlines and our yearly timelines begins to add up. Then as we mentioned earlier, there’s this feeling that we’re losing time. It’s no wonder that we’re more concerned with what our lives look like rather than how we’re living our lives.
I thought I’d check the dictionary again, this time for the meaning of “lifetime”. It is the duration or length of time in which someone lives or exists. But there was another meaning which interestingly we usually use more frequently in relation to things, not people. The meaning of “lifetime” is also about the duration of effectiveness or usefulness, LIKE the life of a battery! However, when we’re riding daily on the Multitasking Highway are we moving too fast to be effective? If a lifetime is about usefulness, are we just frantically checking off boxes on our life card or living that kind of meaning into our lives? 
Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you right now. I’ve gotta run….got to get my nails done, pick up my son from soccer club, grab some groceries for dinner, try on the dress I’ll wear for the wedding I’m attending, binge watch the last season of…let’s put a pin in it, okay?
Sallye Forth is a mom working outside of the home, a co-parent, life coach and writer. She’s a citizen of the world who shares her world view on varied topics of interests on her blog, Blogstown; a cybercafé for grown ups.
