Driving to an orthodontist appointment Beth remarks somewhat wistfully, “We’re halfway through the summer holidays and it feels as if they’ve only just started”. That’s the thing with time, it passes more quickly than most of us would like, especially when we’re doing things we enjoy or even nothing much at all.
Yet another birthday is speeding towards me over the horizon and time is showing no intention of slowing down. I ask Beth what she is doing, she says “I’m just passing time”, but this is a myth because we do not pass time, time passes us, rapidly. To consider reality any other way is to fool ourselves into believing we have some control and therefore to risk wasting more precious moments than we can afford.
To make good use of time does not require that we fill it with worthy or exciting experience, it simply asks that we be satisfied with that which we do put into its ample space because it passes us constantly so we’d better be happy to watch it go.
An odd thing has happened to me over the past few years. As I have removed things from my life I have found time to be a much more forgiving companion. Far from feeling dissatisfied without meticulously filling my days I have benefited from being able to appreciate life more fully, more able to savour the taste without having to stuff more into my mouth, but I still question my use of time and fall into the shameful feeling many of us associate with “time wasting”.
On reflection I’m not sure what time wasting really is. I know that it is possible to feel that we are watching time pass, being left running up the platform as the train pulls away from the station, but perhaps we find ourselves in this position precisely because we are so anxious to fill time when really there is no necessity to do so. Perhaps time wasting is nothing more than an inability to appreciate what we are doing instead of thinking we would be better served engaged in something else.
There is nothing like a garden to remind us of the passing time. One day we dig tiny seeds into the earth and it seems as if only moments later they have become towering plants or flowering shrubs. We know it didn’t happen instantly but it feels as if it did. The passing seasons too are marked so clearly in the garden. The beauty and joy of sitting in the sun today waiting patiently for the tomatoes to ripen is tempered by the realisation that it won’t be long before opening the doors onto a similar bright morning will precede a rush of cold air into the kitchen and the telltale smell of autumn approaching. I’m already pickling a glut of green beans as if to beckon the seasons on even more quickly than they might otherwise come.
Why then do we become so alarmed and distressed with time? It’s ironic that worrying about the time which continues to speed past us is most likely to result in us losing appreciation of the lives that grow shorter with every day as it does so. It isn’t comfortable to think about mortality but nothing changes its inevitability.
When we stop and consider the brevity of life is it not foolish to hold back in the ways that we undoubtedly do? Why do we fear saying what we feel, asking for what we want, expressing our needs, taking a risk, trying something we want? Why don’t we go all out? It is because, stronger than the fear of passing time is the fear that we might render ourselves “worth less” in whatever time there is left to pass. However long we have we are keen to preserve our emotional safety, but at what cost?
As time ebbs away we can feel both surrendered to the dissatisfying status quo (“we don’t talk anymore”, “my relationship isn’t what I want”, “the sex isn’t great”) and panicked by it at the same time (“I have to fix it NOW because time is running out!”). Our anxiety cannot lead to sensible and lasting change because change is hard to create “out there” when all is not right “in here”.
It is our satisfaction with ourselves and the life we lead independent of others which makes it easiest to express ourselves openly and honestly to those who share our life. If we can accept the consequences of our truths then we have nothing to fear. If we have nothing to fear we are constantly able to reach new levels of self acceptance, and then the passing of time ceases to be such a tyrant and instead moves in a rhythm more in keeping with the beat we already notice inside us.
In her book “Big Magic” Elizabeth Gilbert talks of “the arrogance of belonging”. It’s a phrase which resonates. If we are willing to share what we have of ourselves, who we are, how we feel simply because we exist and therefore have a right to do so we are much more likely to throw off unnecessary expectation from without and within. To paint, to write, to sing, to make, to create, to grow simply because we are able to is a joy, and the more willing we are to act congruently with ourselves the less anxious we are likely to become about the end of our own time. It is not time which runs out, it is us. So then, much better that we concentrate on making our own lives as good as they can be knowing that it is only this which we control anyway.
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