Time feels like the most precious commodity in my life - how much I have, how I spend it, will I get more, will I have enough? I think that if I lived more in the present moment, these concerns would fade away. These are fears based on a scarcity model, whereas I am trying to embrace the idea of abundance. And yet, when it comes to time there really is a finite aspect to it that cannot be denied. Unless you are Dr. Who of course, but I digress... Today at work there were several people "wasting" my time - people who came in to chat about random things, or to try to fix tiny problems that are irrelevant to the work we're doing. This behavior is so irritating to me, completely out of proportion to its immediate impact. I lost about an hour of work time, and was potentially developing relationships that will help me "get more done" later on. And while I get frustrated about wasting money or resources, wasting time just triggers me in a whole different way. Why is this? Why am I so obsessed with wanting to control my time? And how can I get over it already? I'm feeling impatient, agitated, like I lost something that can never be recovered. I think this reaction to "wasting" time would need to change for me to actually slow down significantly. But how do I change this? This obsession with time is so deeply ingrained in me, and in the society around me. And so here I am, frustrated and feeling stuck. Any advice, friends?
This continues to be a huge challenge for me. Mostly I feel the same as I did when I wrote this post 10 years ago, especially the part about getting extremely agitated and/or triggered when there is inefficiency and time is being "wasted".
ReplyDeleteOne thing that has shifted for me more recently, however, is that I am able to see a much longer view of time. It's still pretty human-scale and puny, compared to how a rock or even a redwood tree experiences time, but I can extend out several hundred years in either direction when I'm thinking about time.
This has come about because of my reorientation to the impact I want to have on the world, and the healing and transformation I want to contribute. While the work itself will occur in this lifetime, the repercussions actually extend out hundreds of years, through my descendants - both directly through my children but also through the art I create and the ripples that come from the ways that I affect and change others, who affect and change others. This has made it easier to feel ok about an hour "wasted" because the scale gets a lot bigger when measuring that hour.
And yet, the same underlying belief remains: that time can be wasted, and using it "productively" is inherently better than chatting or solving tiny problems.
One of the major challenges of becoming a parent has been the amount of mundane time and wasted time that occurs with young children. Last night, for example, it took 20 minutes to take out the compost because both kids wanted to come with me, then there was the whole putting on coats and shoes, and then one of them fell down walking outside and there was the whole comforting process after that!
I could not have tolerated this level of inefficiency 10 years ago. And while it can still be challenging and/or triggering to me at times, my ability to accept and go with the pace of young children has increased exponentially since my oldest was born 6 years ago. So in that way there is a fundamental shift that has happened, but it still feels uncomfortable.