Life Rushing By: Analysis (Final)

This sonnet is a reflection of how I see life as I grow into an adult. I recall how the hours went by, the days went by, the months went by, and the years went by. When I look back, I don’t remember much of what happened when I was really young, and the pictures in the family photo album are what really tell the story of my life so far. Life has seemed like a blur because it is rushing by too fast, and I don’t feel like I am enjoying it to the fullest extent. Sometimes I feel lost, and I wish that I could just stop time from moving forward so I could take a breath.
I start off this sonnet, entitled Life Rushing By, by trying to get the reader to visualize my life journey and make them feel like they were taking the same path, right along side me. I relate my life journey to walking down a street on the sidewalk during rush hour traffic. This best symbolizes the image of being overwhelmed by life’s fast moving pace. As I begin, I open with the image of “roaring car engines” that are speeding by as I casually walk home. These cars symbolize the days that go by during my life. This metaphor can also be thought of as the pages on a calendar being torn off as the days turn into months. I go on to talk about feeling the rush of wind that the cars create as they go by. As I am walking down the sidewalk, or the journey of life, I get caught up in the wind of the passing cars, or days of my life. These days seem to keep coming at high speed and are unrelenting, just like the wind generated from rushing cars. As I get caught up in the wind of the passing cars, I am getting swept up in the hustle and bustle of life. Life seems to be showing me too many things at once, and therefore I am not able to soak it all up. In the end, however, I ignore these cars, and I stand still, untouched by the speeding cars. I refuse to let these days overwhelm my life.
The next stanza helps the reader visualize and hear what life rushing by is like for me. Like the pictures in the family photo album, visualizing these events of my life, helps to let it soak in and create my identity. I live in a condo right next to a busy street, so I know what the rush hour road sounds like. First of all, the roaring engines create the beat and pulse of life. As the cars are roaring by, they seem to be in a “race to get nowhere”. The destination is not as important as how you live your life getting there. As soon as that red light flips on, the screeching tires emerge from the beat of the roaring engines and create a “crashing of the cymbals”. These cars are in such a rush and are traveling so fast, that they have a hard time stopping when a yellow light warns them to. I relate this to wanting to slow down time smoothly, but in life, it never goes as smoothly as you had planned. As people are always in a rush, they in turn get frustrated when a machine with three colored lights tells them to slow down. People’s natural instinct is to slap their hand on the horn and honk it as long as they can when they are in a hurry. I guess this is why it is so naturally located in the center of the steering wheel where people can get to it easily, the second they get frustrated. These honking horns seem to bring a sense of melody to the street where there was previously only a beat and an accented crash. Put together as one, these many sounds tell the tale of how my life whizzes by.
As I summarize my ideas on how life rushes by too fast, I stop to ask myself “Why do people seem to be in a rush?” This question puzzles me, but we all know that it is true in our daily life. For example, when I get into the elevator at my condo, I know that I only have to press the button once, but for some reason I feel the urge to press the button multiple times until the elevator door closes. Have you ever wondered why they now equip elevators with those arrow buttons, which mean to either hold the door open or close it immediately? It really only saves you a couple of seconds depending on whether you just relax and let the door close, or whether you jam your finger into the “Close Now” button. This goes to prove that people always seem to be in a rush and never want to stand still for even a few seconds more then they absolutely have to. When I look back at the day, I notice that in our society, we are almost set up like robots to do the same daily activities at the same time. When the device that we have come to know as the “clock” reads 6:00, this it telling me that I need to get out of bed. When the clock reads 7:30, it is telling me that I should be in English class based on what “letter” day it is. It seems to me like our life is preprogrammed and we can’t make it our own, at our own pace.
Therefore, I conclude by giving some advice to the reader. I feel that everyone needs to have their own time to relax when the cars finally seem to stop rushing by. We all need that time to stop for a moment and let the day sink in. Of course, the peace will soon be broken when that “clock” starts to honk at you, as a new day begins.