Just a few more minutes…

I am sitting on the living room couch, poring over some manual, when my son walks in. His t-shirt catches my eye; it says “Just a few minutes”.

This gets me thinking. This phrase ‘just a few minutes’ plays a very important role in our lives. As kids, when our Dad would wake us up on school day mornings, especially during winter, my sisters and I would furrow deeper into our blankets, and mumble from the recesses of sleep, “Dad, just a few minutes more, please?” On somedays, we were indulged, on other days, not so.

Image courtesy – canstockphoto.com

Now, as a mother, when I wake my kids up every morning, “just a few more minutes” is their constant refrain. And I find myself behaving exactly like my father did, playing both good mom and bad mom.

But those ‘just few minutes’ are indeed very special. Minutes to savour and treasure, a few moments to prolong the joys of sleep, of not having to leave the blanket and rush into the mundane.

We hear this phrase in many other situations as well – when kids beg for a few more minutes of television time, or phone time or play time.

Then again, when one is working out on the treadmill or elliptical trainer, one has to push oneself to the finish line with these same words – “just a few more minutes.” The most difficult few minutes – minutes that truly move at a snail’s pace.

Then there are those days as school kids, when we waited for the “just a few minutes” before the school bell would ring, so that we could come home and play with our friends.

And then, there were all those super important moments in our lives, where time stood suspended and we had to wait “just a few minutes” for final exams to finish, for graduation gowns to flutter, for the first job offer to come our way, for marriage and vows, for the birth of a child.

We can never forget the anticipation, the wait and the joys of all those moments, and the “just a few minutes” that preceded all of them.

And that is how it will always be, where we try to condense the boring moments, and try to wish them away, while we try to stretch the pleasurable moments, and constantly strive to maximize the joy from them.

And now, as I sip my afternoon cup of coffee….I relish every sip. After all, what are “just a few more minutes” in the grand scheme of things.

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