Thoughts on Time
“Be on time,” they say. “Don’t waste your time,” they say. Time is of the essence. Time is precious. Time is money. Time is this, and time is that. But what is time, really? Have you ever thought about this? Historically, time is just a concept made up by a bunch of philosophers and scientists, trying to measure more accurately how we go from one moment to the next, one day to the next. Throughout the thousands and thousands of years of human existence, people have been coming up with countless different ways to measure time. Today, we generally think of time in numbers. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and so on. But those things are also made up. Made-up, and seemingly concrete things we’ve grown to rely on so much in our daily lives. And maybe, just maybe, we’ve become so obsessed with following this concept of time that we’ve become blind to what’s happening right in front of us, unaware of the beauty of each passing moment. And then, somehow, a few years have gone by and we’ve realized we haven’t truly been appreciating any of it. It’s like time has somehow consumed us.
We often think and say things are moving too quickly. You know, that saying, “time flies.” Well, maybe it does. But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe, what’s really ‘flying’ is our increasingly busy lives. Rushing from one place to the next, trying to meet the deadlines, get to work on time, finish those essays, all the things that come with being so-called responsible adults in society today. There’s been a shift. Now, it’s normal, and totally accepted, to always be rushing. To always be doing more, to always be complaining about not having enough time. And what’s even crazier is that in many circles it’s even frowned upon to say that we’re bored. Or that we have too much time on our hands. Or that we just didn’t know how to spend our time on a day off so we ended up working instead.
Maybe we’ve grown so used to looking at the hours of the day, the minutes of each hour, having every single thing planned out, that when we realized we have some “free” time, we're afraid. Afraid that we won’t recognize who we are anymore. Afraid of what it’s like to just sit in silence for a little bit with our thoughts. Afraid of what feelings, what emotions might arise. Afraid of just being. Being in a body, on this planet, without any distractions.
It’s funny how we’ve started thinking of time as a commodity. Perhaps, we agree to a certain extent. Time is valuable and time is of the essence. But the way we speak of time, for example, when we “spend time” doing something, or have “free time”, sort of takes away from how valuable this concept of time actually is. How important this concept that was made up by philosophers and scientists thousands of years ago actually is. Our time on this planet is finite. I think everyone knows that. But we’ve been using time like it’s an unlimited resource, when in reality, it isn’t. We say we don’t have the time, so we’ll do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next year. And then years later, we’ve realized we didn’t spend as much time as we wanted with our family, or we didn’t get to do the things we loved, because we were too busy working or whatever nonsense excuse we’ve told ourselves. Our time here is finite.
Perhaps, rather than thinking of time as this concrete theory, we can think of it as a way of life. As a flow, as a continuous existence of life and love and energy. And instead of “spending” time, we’re just “being” in time. Just being in this space of continuous existence, doing things we love, and of course, sometimes even doing those adult things we might not like as much. Instead of living with this constant pressure of never having enough time, we could think of it like we’re just in this continuum of moments. Living from one present moment to the next. Each moment, in constant gratitude for the tiny seconds, the tiny minutes we do get to experience on this planet. Because they really are a gift.
If it’s hard to imagine this type of flowing through moments, think back to what it was like being a kid. When you’d go out and play for hours on end, until you were called in for dinner. Or even older still, when you were doing something you absolutely loved and all of a sudden you notice it’s after midnight. We spend our days planning, obsessing, holding onto this concept of time, maybe because it’s the only seemingly concrete thing we have to rely on. The sun will keep rising, and the sun will keep setting. We will keep rising, and we will keep setting. Eventually, though, we will stop. And eventually, the sun will too. And if we look back on our time here, on how we’ve lived our lives, is there anything we wish we could have done differently? Is there anything we wish we could do now? If the answer to the second question is yes, then do it. Do it wholeheartedly, because all we have is this moment. Right now. Whatever fills you up with endorphins, lights your heart and soul on fire, do it, no matter how cliche it sounds. Because this is your time to be alive. And now is the time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do.
Written by: Mia Kataisto