To meet with friends,
To listen to other perspectives,
To understand what someone is trying to tell me through a story or a metaphor,
To visit family,
To watch a film about what the 1989 revolution meant,
To read the works of Fitzgerald, Proust, Balzac, Poe—literature, really,
To go to the opera, the theater, the ballet, the Athenaeum,
To learn something new,
To grab a coffee with someone who keeps inviting me.

Yes, there are times when we’re truly overwhelmed, when life piles up from all directions. But when this “I don’t have time” lasts for six months, a year, two, three—that’s no longer about life’s pace.
That’s something else.
That’s about not making time.
We hide behind our supposed lack of time.

Sometimes, it’s because we don’t really want to see someone. I’ve met people who use others the way we use a train—to take us from one point to another.
When they’re no longer useful, we disembark, and they’re no longer part of the journey.
I don’t like that way of living. I’ve been someone’s “train” before.
It took me a long time to realize it, and once I did, it left me puzzled, hurt, frustrated, even angry.
But once we realize it, we stop going back to those old stations.

In other cases, we don’t make time for certain activities (reading, learning, studying) because deep down, we’re afraid our inner world might tremble if we learn something new.
If we were to think through a different lens, from a different paradigm, it might unravel the fabric we’ve woven for ourselves—our worldview, our meaning-making systems.
And maybe that fabric is already fragile, made of thin threads, so delicate they might snap with the slightest pull.

Here’s the surprise: those threads will snap anyway.
Eventually, many of the frameworks we’ve built our arguments, thoughts, and lives upon need to be re-evaluated.
They need to be tested, questioned, explored from new angles, in order to truly withstand the test of time.

So I propose we make time—to study history, literature, philosophy.
To sharpen our critical thinking.
To engage in meaningful conversations.
To get to know the people around us.
To think—and to rethink—so we can keep our minds young.