Walking the kids to school is one of my favourite things to do. They don’t need it. Both boys can easily find their way there and back on their own. But I need it. On the mornings when they are with Jenn and I, it gives me an excuse to take a 30 minute walk early in the day, and it provides an opportunity for connection.

This morning’s walk was extraordinary. I said something about “time flies when you’re having fun” and Silas picked up on this and wanted to know what that meant.  I asked him instead. He said it that when you’re doing something that you like, time doesn’t seem to take as long. The three of us discussed this: how could that be so? I thought one second was one second and one minute was one minute.

It just seems that way, said Rio. Again I pushed back. Rio responded that when you were doing something that you really loved, you could lose track of time.

So time is relative? I asked.

What does that mean? Silas’ face twisted into a 6-year-old question.

It means that sometimes time seems to go fast and sometimes it feels to drag on forever.

Like when you’re not having fun, Rio added.

That’s right. It’s a matter of perception: how we experience something can change it, and us, I said. That’s why our attitude about things is important. Having fun, I said, is a choice, and if we can choose to laugh, have fun, then we change the properties – the physical make up – of things.

I should point out that our morning conversations aren’t always this philosophical. Just yesterday we had a long discussion on if you combined fire and lightening would you get a laser, and if so, just how much damage could you do with it? This morning I threw in a bit on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but that was taking things a little too far.

We circled back to time flying as the school hove in view. Rio was up just after 6 and wanted to write. I had been up for an hour doing the same, so I know how it was to wake up with a story banging at your head, trying to get out. Rio said to me: this morning when I was writing, it felt like just a few minutes.

That’s right, I said, but it was in fact an hour.

Is that what you mean? He asked.

That’s it exactly. When we’re doing something we love, time seems to disappear. I told him that’s how I felt every single morning. That’s why I got up before five each day to write novels, before getting him and his brother ready for school and then starting my day job.

I told him he had learned an important secret: do what you love and you feel the sense of bliss that accompanies having discovered your Dharma. But I think I made it simpler for the ten year old: do what you love and it feels so good time flies.

The boys went to school and I walked home. Every single moment is a choice between bliss and boredom; between time flying and time dragging on and on. Choose wisely; this is the only time we have; there is no other time.

Follow me on Twitter @stephenlegault.

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