Seems like a sprint sometimes, time goes by so quickly, but the thing is what is the finishing line ? What are we all rushing to do? People say you slow up as you get older but the thing with time, as you get older, it goes faster, the year starts and before you know it the Christmas adverts are back, oh so jolly, on the television (seriously, five weeks and we will be back there again, joy) and you think… where did that go, what did I do? Nothing, usually, just the same old thing.

Should life be endured, probably not, it should be celebrated, doesn’t last that long after all, but seemingly we turn it into that race, the rat race, house, cars, new clothes, all pretty soul destroying, ephemeral and meaningless and what we all seem to value most. You buy something, and then feel the need to buy something else. Buy a dress and you need the shoes and bag to match. Decorate one room in your house and then you have to do the whole lot, then the house is not good enough so bigger and better. We are all striving – for things.

We go off to the supermarket and fill our trolleys, throw maybe one third of it away when there are children starving in the world. We worry about some lump of metal passing an MOT test, let that fill our minds with dread when mothers all over the country have sons in Afghanistan and really do have something to dread and fear.

We are seduced by the pretty pictures in the magazines and on the television, and want and want. Some people make themselves miserable by not having, thinking they can only be happy if they have. When if they stopped wanting, they would be happier.

Life is what you make it and just look what we have made it …

Instead of a gentle jog we had made it an endurance race – work more, earn more, buy more…