When you are young and footloose, a year of time doesn’t look so long and priceless as it does a few decades later. The peerless Einstein was not referring to human life when he postulated his Theory of Relativity, but he may as well have been. The reason? Time moves at a faster and faster rate the older we get, and nothing can be done to slow its acceleration. What seemed like weeks in our teens is condensed down to hours in our eighties, despite the fact the timepieces we use in both instances remain exactly the same. And as part of this increased acceleration, time itself becomes correspondingly more valuable; we simply appreciate it more and take it for granted less. Young people will of course scoff at this revelation and question its veracity, but I hereby guarantee you that in fifty years every one of them will perform a sharp about-face and experience an absolute change of heart on the subject.
Fred's Soapbox 