If it seems as though there is never enough time to accomplish all that we intend to do in a day, perhaps it’s all Benjamin Franklin’s fault. In 1784 he famously declared “Time is money.” His intention was to motivate people to work more and shun “idleness.” He worried about the young country’s potential to generate industry and be innovative and industrious. How the pendulum has swung!
Today, one of the more insidious anxieties of modern life is fearing a lack of time. But time is an abstract human concept. The natural world flows seamlessly, a succession of days and nights, moons and suns. The natural world changes, but there is only ever the current moment. Once people invented calendars and clocks, they could measure and divide this endless flow, and time became a thing that could be “spent,” “lost,” or “wasted,” and having a “shortage” of time became a source of stress. Now, if we have a task in front of us, we often pay more attention to the zipping-away, fleeting clock time — the hour or half hour or ten minutes we’ve allotted for finishing the task — than to the task itself. If a task takes longer than expected, if we rush and make mistakes, anxiety sets in, our breathing becomes shallower, and our sense of enjoyment and accomplishment disappears. Frequently, the more we’re distracted by trying to beat the clock, the longer tasks take to complete.
But no matter how well we manage our time, the underlying problem and fear regarding time remains. To transform our fear, we need to change the way we think about and experience time. We have to think of time as more than a ticking clock.
Relative and Absolute Time
Relative time is clock time and psychological time. While relative time is an artificial human construct, it is a compellingly useful one. We can only plan and prioritize in the realm of relative time. Past, present, and future are essential tools for understanding, visioning, and planning. Once we’ve decided what is most important or essential to accomplish, relative time allows us to measure the future (in hours, days, or years) so we can successfully achieve it. In practice, this means reflecting on the past (how long did things take before?), weighing options (how long will it take if I do it this way or that way?), and effectively planning each day so that our time is “spent” effectively, rather than “wasted” by constantly reacting to distractions or focusing on lesser priorities.
Absolute time is the unmeasured, ongoing “now” moment of the natural world, and it is equally important. When we enter the realm of absolute time, we see and experience ourselves and the world beyond the human construct of relative time. In absolute time, there is no “time.” Instead, we become fully aware of and focused on the present moment and the activity in front of us, without regard to past or future. Paradoxically, as we become completely aware and present in absolute time, we also lose an awareness of ourselves. This is what the great thirteenth-century Japanese Zen teacher Eihei Dogen referred to when he said, “To study Buddhism is to study yourself. To study yourself is to forget yourself. To forget yourself is to awaken with everyone and everything.”
We study ourselves in order to become aware of our conditioning, which is the sum of our past experiences. To understand our conditioning is to understand how we project our past into the present and the future. For example, when I say the word sky, you form an image in your mind of the sky. You know what the sky looks like because you’ve seen it before. But your image of sky might be different from mine. More importantly, when you step outside, you might not pay any attention to the sky because you think you already know what it looks like. You’ve seen it a thousand times. However, in truth, the sky is new every moment and never the same — it is always changing, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically.
The same is true of ourselves. We think we know who we are, for we have been conditioned by our past experiences. As with relative time, for the sake of convenience, we become set or fixed about our ideas of ourselves — so that we unfold with a reassuring predictability, like the hours of a day. Within the realm of absolute time, however, these increments, these labels from the past, do not exist. Human constructs based in relative time disappear. Experiencing absolute time is to experience the world as it actually is in the moment, and doing so requires that we loosen our ideas and constructs.
When we drop our conditioning, it’s quite remarkable how the ordinary becomes extraordinary: the sky comes alive, the flowers come alive, time comes alive, and our experience comes alive. In this state of aliveness, we are more composed, more ready, and more productive. This sense of aliveness instills a fresh sense of meaning to one’s activities and relationships. It also opens up new possibilities, since we are no longer bound by our past. The result is increased focus, creativity, and productivity. And less fear.
Playing with Time
Here is a way to practice and play with time:
Each day, decide one thing that you want to accomplish during the day. Create a written list of next steps and associated dates when each of these steps will be initiated and projected completion dates.
Each day, spend some time totally unconcerned with time. You can do this by bringing your attention to your breath and your body, for a period of three breaths. Or, bring your attention to flowers or trees or the sky, seeing them as if for the first time. For part of each day, let go of your “to do” list.
Adapted from Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less