“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.” ― Albert Einstein.
Time is indeed relative as my pal pointed out. Folks of a certain age become aware that time slips away faster and faster as you age, and there’s no disputing that. So here’s examples of things that clearly illustrate how “relative” really is. During the last few months, I have happily discovered that some stuff you thought would take a long time, actually take next to no time. For examples, here are three chores that don’t take nearly as much time as I thought:
1) Watering the Plants. Since I work from home my wife asks me to water the plants around the yard. I hate doing it, because I know the plants don’t appreciate it. In fact, I think they hate me. So I dreaded that chore and I found reasons why I didn’t have the time to do it. “Hmmm.. I have somewhere I have to be in 2 hours – sorry plants!”. In fact the entire chore takes maybe 15 minutes.
2) Unloading the Dishwasher. Same thing. It’s not fun, and I think it takes a long time. It doesn’t. I try to avoid it, but it really only takes 10 minutes, tops.
Now some things take longer than you think – for example:
3) Changing guitar strings. It’s not hard, but it always takes me longer than I expect. There’s always either one old string that doesn’t want to come off, or a new that won’t go through the hole on the peghead, or at least one string pokes and you bleed all over your guitar and you can’t find the bandaids, and what supposed to be a routine task ends up being a long project. If you begin this task before you leave for a gig, beware! You’re gonna be late.
4) Picking up fuzz off the floor. You’re walking along, and you glance down and see a bit of fuzz on the floor. Being a conscientious guy, I figure, “I’ll be a good guy and pick this up.”. I bend down quickly and make a grab for the fuzz – and miss it. So I bend down a second time and take a second swipe at – and miss it again. No problem! I reach down a third time – and miss it again! Now I’m steamed. I take a knee and make a careful grab for the fuzz. Then I have to get up and take it to the trash. Total elapsed time – 20 minutes. My day is shot.
So, Albert Einstein’s science holds up, even for regular folks like me!
