A Life in a Day

As you get older, your options start to reduce in life. It is like how one spends a free day.

When you wake up in the morning, there are many things you could do that day. Go to the beach, text a friend to go visit a museum, go for a long cycle ride.

As the day wears on, the range of things you could do diminishes. Sure, you could set out for the beach 1 hour away, but by the time you got there the sun would already be setting. Your friend has already started doing something else. So you make do with less ambitious things like walking to the local book shop or going to the cinema.

By the time the evening comes, your options are limited further: watch TV at home, read a book, write a blog post. This is not to say that these are all fine things to do compared with all the other ideas. The question is how intentional this choice was vs. the result of decision making under diminished options.

As you reach the end of the day, there is some comfort in knowing that you made the most of the day. You are not (usually) entertaining ideas of going for a midnight museum visit or cycle ride through the country in darkness. Instead, you're happy to sit back and read magazine maybe with a glass of wine. This is the closest I can get to imagining what old age feels like.