The perception of time

Hey guys! it’s great to see you again. For a while I’ve been meaning to talk about time and our perception of it. I dont want to write a sad or melancholic article to describe how limited our time is on earth and how we should cherish every moment. By now I think that should be fairly obvious and how you deal with it is up to you. Whether you decide to confront it or not, it’s your call.

What I am keen on exploring is how I think you should experience time, and how to relate to it as opposed to how it relates to you. But before that, please join me in thinking about not only what it is, but more importantly, what it means. This should help us build some groundwork which we can later expand on to extract some helpful lessons that we can apply in our daily lives.

Putting a face on it

Time is really interesting as it’s impossible to put your finger on it. Time is something abstract since we cannot talk to it, shape it, or negotiate with in any way. It also includes a dual polarity as it is distant and yet so close, given that we cannot reach it but it can reach us. It almost feels like we are co-existing with it in a parallel universe. However, whereas we are restricted to our own “jurisdiction”, time is able to traspass the dimensional border. In fact, it is able to do this so much that it even defines our very own existence. In a nutshell, it’s both “out there”, affecting everyone and everything around us, and simultaneously, transforming and forcing us to subject to its rules.

You surely figured out by now that it doesn’t matter how much you try to hold on to it, the clock is ticking under its own terms. Perhaps you would like to make it go faster. This typically happens when you are in a difficult scenario such as a confrontation of some sort or a boring day at the office. In these cases, day dreaming over this idea can provide a false sense of release from the unfulfillable hope that your suffering will be over sooner.

Contrastingly, you may love the current situation you are in. Maybe you are hanging out with friends or enjoying a sunset, wishing that you could make that moment last forever. Unfortunately, regardless of whether you would like to extend or shorten it, your desire cannot control it. Likewise, your capacities or resources are powerless against it. Even if you have all the money in the world, it affects us all in the same way which in turn acts as the ultimate equalizer among disparate individuals.

Another way to look at it is that time is democratic in the sense that it has a large scope and grants widespread (view only) access among the living. Nevertheless, it is also dictatorial which means the end result is the same. For better or for worse, nobody gets to vote to decide how it should behave. It has its own agenda and there is nothing you do can do about it, or is there….?

Changing our conception of time

Earlier on I mentioned that time transforms us and makes us follow its rules. This paints the picture that it has a deep internal effect much like sunlight does. Let me explain… When we expose ourselves to the sun, we absorb the light through the pores of our skin. From there it enters our system in the form of particles and vitamins which intertwine with our organism until they become part of us. Likewise, I suggested that time impegnates us with our witout consent. However, as opposed to the sun, we cannot hide from it in the shaddows or avoid it any way, at least for now. But what if I told you that it is possible to gain some distance from it? Would you be interested in this?

For a long time I have been drawn towards stoic philosophy. Even though I am not an expert in the field, I have some knowledge of what it entails and so I would like to borrow some ideas from people like Marcus Aurelius, as they appear useful for the purposes of this discussion.

Stoics have this ongoing belief that despite the fact that we cannot control external events or actors, we can determine how we react to them. Think of it like this. Imagine you have gone to the dentist and you are waiting in the reception room until you are attended. As this is prior to covid, you are sitting right next to another person who is doing the same thing. Since there isn’t anything inbetween you two he is free to interact with you directly, (assuming you are not actively working to shelter yourself from him by wearing ear plugs for example). As a result, you are totally exposed to him which might be positive or negative depending on his actions.

The thing is though, his actions do not solely determine the outcome. That is to say, you can actually choose how they affect you because they are subject to your interpretation. Even if he says something offensive for instance, you can decide to ignore it, by realising that his hurtful comment is the product of his own misery and therefore is not personally related to you. OK… but what does this have to with time?

What i’m trying to say is that even though time is inevitable, we can pick how we evaluate it. Consequently, going back to the dentist metaphor, if we personify time as the other patient in the room, we have the capacity to process his comments and construe them in any way we like. We can essentially ignore them in our mind which would be the equivilant of placing another person in the middle of us to act as a protective buffer. Notwithstanding the above, the greater question is, why would we want to ignore time when we can the opportunity to be grateful for it?

The upside of time

As I said at the begining, I am not particularly interested in talking about how precious time is and how you should make the most of it, since I think that is pretty obvious. However, I will just briefly say that time is what gives life meaning. If there was an endless supply of it, life would have no value. There would be no point in selling it at the supermarket, even if it included a major discount as people wouldn’t buy it if they could get it away for free in the street. In that regard, and accepting the premise that we have the power to react to it positively, why not embrace it fully instead of ignoring it. Dont let anyone come in your way or sit inbetween! You dont need a buffer. I encourage you to have an open dialogue with it and learn to enjoy the conversation.

Why settle?

Throughout the latter part of this article I put forward the theory that you can create distance with time which has brought about the conclusion that you should enjoy it. However, upon reflection, it seems like we can squeeze the lemon even further to get “more bang for your buck”.

If you accept that time is on one side and you are on the other, logic suggests that you can exert a certain amount of control over it which means you could potentially enter a “different time zone”, as crazy as that sounds. As a result, this would dismantle the premise that it can reach you directly without limitations… But is this really plausible?

Make time your own

Have you ever noticed that time is relative? Whenever i’m on holiday and I travel, even if it’s just for a couple of weeks, for some reason it feels much longer. I guess that may be due to the fact that when I take a break, I often pack a lot of different experiences in a short amount of space. The intensity of it generates a large volume of mixed feelings, which I subconsciously associate with more time, based on a positive correlation between those two factors.

“It’s not the years in your life that counts. It’s the life in your years”.-Abraham Lincoln

Given the above, it seems that our life style can programme our clock to meet our interests to a certain extent (we all grow old eventually). At least it can modify our experience of it, which at the end of the day is the only thing that actually matters to us. Thus, we can conclude that we dont need a pill of any kind or other chemical substances to change the way we relate to time. We can make up our own terms (for the most part, assuming we have a minum amount of liberties and resources) by undertaking actions that will allow us to live life in the most fulfilling way.

That being said, I do realise you could also argue that “time flies when you’re having fun”, but even if this is the case I believe most people would prefer to have a sweeter & shorter life surrounded by their loved ones, than a longer unsatisying one.

Milestones

To finish off I wanted to give some practical insights. This article has been mostly theoretical which means that you may have struggled to find real life applications. Therefore, I wanted to share some observations that you may find more useful. But before I do this, I’ll briefly explain where I am coming from in order to to frame the convsersation.

I’m almost 30 years old which means that I have probably lived around one third of my life. Hence, this allows me to speak from the perspective of someone who has experienced this amount of time, and relate to others in the same age group as well as earlier stages. However, hopefully what I’m about to say has universal applications and older people than I can take advantage of it as well.

“Life is not a straight line”- Cristiano Ronaldo

As far as I have seen, it seems like nowadays some people are a bit obsessed with milestones and accomplishing them before a certain age. For example, many individuals claim that they want to be married before 30 or have a kid or a certain job before hitting a specific target. For me this is not only unecessary but moreover, unproductive. I get that some people may have good reasons to want to do something at a particular time. Having babies for example, could possibly be included in this category given that the more you wait after hitting a certain age, the higher the risk of a problematic experience.

However, for the most part, as Cristiano Ronaldo suggested, life is not so straghtforward. There are many unknown factors which can affect your ability to reach a specific goal, which by the way, is completely artificial and self made. The fact that you may take longer than others to accomplish something does not necessarily preclude you from having a more “successful” life over the long term. There are so many factors that take place and the movie is continually “rolling” so don’t worry if you’re not there yet. Keep hustling, keep trying to become a better a person in every different aspect and if you do you will eventually have a good chance of accomplishing those milestones.

I recently wrote that factors other than your actions might impact your capacity to achieve your goals. I have seen plenty of valuable people who have been curtailed by others at some stage in their lives (and of course this includes myself). Nevertheless, I have realised that there is a really powerful formula which almost never fails and that is the combination of determination and persistance over a long period of time. If you apply yourself, even though you may loose a few battles you will most likely win the war. Colonel Sanders for instance became a millionaire at 60 years of age and he still had a really long journey ahead to enjoy it.

Thank you for joining me on this trip! I hope you liked reading it as much as I did writing it.