Savouring life's journey

Thirty minutes on the treadmill can be an awfully long time. The seconds seem to stretch with each pounding step. The view from the gym is of rooftops and power lines and windows with thick drapes. It is a static canvas without any activity to focus upon. I try and break down the half an hour into manageable parts.

On the three minute mark I know that one-tenth of the workout is over. Five minutes is one-sixth, 10 is one-third and so on and so forth. The 27th minute is the best - nine-tenths of the slog is over! I know getting mental exercise is not the point of the exercise but I can use all the exercise I can get.

Driving to work and back home, battling traffic day in and day out is not a happy experience. The commute is judged by the time taken to get from point A to point B and the least number of near death experiences on the road. The pleasurable experience of motoring, the well laid out highways and the comfortable car are all forgotten.

Sitting under a beach umbrella, sipping a cool drink, watching wave upon wave arrive at the beach sounds heavenly. I can hear the seagulls cry out and the palm fronds swish in the gentle breeze. The lunches are long, and the siestas longer. I am on holiday but I am counting down the days before I get back on an aircraft and return to the hurried pace of normality. Before the holiday began I was counting how much it would cost me.

My wife recently received a phone call from a friend early in the morning. She was told that a former colleague had passed away. He was 38 years old and leaves behind a wife and two children. My wife said he was a very nice person and it was hard to think of him in the past tense. I did not know him but I wondered what it must be like for his family. It is always hard for those left behind.

That got me thinking. All of us make plans for the future. We want to achieve goals, meet targets and get to the next level. Bigger, better and more is the mantra. What happens if it is time to check out? Do I ever turn to the last few pages when I read a book so that I know what happened at the end? Do I hit the fast forward button when watching a movie at home so that I don't have to sit through the entire film? Do I rush through a fine meal without tasting anything so that I can enjoy dessert at the end? The answer to all the above questions is no, so why rush through things that are not enjoyable? Why rush through life at all? I have to slow down, instead of going through the motions. Looking forward to good things is part of human nature but I can moan and groan a little less through the bad.

I am going to make the best of the 30 minutes on the treadmill. I am going to reap the benefits of exercise and think of the good I am doing to myself as I tromp upon the unyielding rubber belt.

I will relax as my car carries me along. If the road is long and the traffic is at a standstill, I will enjoy the music blaring from the radio. I will count the number of cars stuck with me and sympathise with all the other drivers. There will be harmony when seagulls cry out and palm fronds whisper in the wind during a holiday.

Might as well enjoy the journey and let the destination take care of itself.