Sixty seconds worth and distance run.

It's a conundrum which can't be answered. All the minutes and hours which have elapsed since we emerged howling into the world. All those minutes and all those missed opportunities !!
What would we have changed, or is the question academic since we were influenced by events rather than opportunity.
Looking back I often wonder how I got from here to there. There was no plan of action, no specific evaluation of what you were to do other than in the broadest of terms responding to things as they unfurled.
But what if it had been different, what if as Kipling says "you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run" how would life have panned out.

I was watching a film made about the lifestyle of a rich stock market trader and how his day is made up of jetting around the world, holding conferences and spending his life in 5 star hotels. The essence was on making money and look what money can buy. 
Watching, I wasn't impressed by its frenetic pace, or, "its 'New York' it must be 'Thursday" message. The Hurley Burley man, rushing around knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing, at least in the philosophical sense, since he seemed fixated on the mollycoddled lifestyle of scotch and canapés and the interminable sameness of hotel living.
If, as you set out on life's journey you had an agenda to make every minute count you would be consumed by the passage of time and the ticking clock. Every achievement would be qualified as simply a notch on the road as you moved to your next appointment with your own 'contrived' destiny.
Mr Bumble, that's me. Not knowing which side of the road I'm on or which direction the traffic is flowing makes life a rich series of chance happenings. Nothing too important that it can't be avoided, nothing too special that if something else were to crop up I'd do it. Life in other words remains a mystery not an event. If success came along it was even more special since it wasn't planned and if failure happened then it was no special deal since one hadn't planned it or put too much hope on the outcome. It's a bit like taking part in an out of body event watching yourself and reflecting on the small nuggets of pleasure which are amplified because you hadn't expected them. You set off with something in mind and end up at a different place doing something you hadn't even thought about but still reflecting on how mystical this life can be if you open up to it.