Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
April 8, 2015

As you grow older you are so much selfish about your time. You don’t want to give it to anyone. You don’t want people taking it from you in any form, be it meeting, partying, travelling, making plans.

Stuff you did as a youngster like late nights and not so great company and salted conversations, now seem like an imposition with most ‘candidates’ leaving you stone cold. You don’t want them on your radar. You are just that much more discerning and you want to do things on your terms. Sure, you risk being seen as an anti-social grumpy old man but you are your own grumpy old man so the devil take the hind leg.

And why should I give you my time? It’s mine. Amazing how one changes. You view invitations with dread and plot how to get out of them. You travel with huge reluctance and early morning flights have you in deep depression.

You want to eat on time, read your books, do your writing, become more disciplined, enjoy solitude and it is so different in texture from loneliness.

Plato had it all figured out. The sheer joy of repose is so distilled that most of us never stop to savor it… or even figure out what it is. It’s now that you realize that you have spent years being invaded by people that did not matter. How much time you gave away for free?

Then, as you slow down and do things your way you watch the rat race still running pell-mell and you want to tell them to ease up and smell the roses. But they won’t listen, they are so busy being all knowing, collecting status symbols and feeling smug and actually believing they spawn envy. And you want to laugh and say, been there, done that… means nothing.

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)