No, of course not…
If there is an invention that has crippled human existence, it is the creation of time. An arbitrary measurement of moments lived that allows us to say things like, “5 years ago” or “I’ll start next week” or my personal favorite “I don’t have enough time”.
Do you realize that human beings are the only living creatures that feel the need to keep track of the comings and goings of the sun and moon? No other creature on earth is concerned with how old they are, what they achieved in the past year, and what they hope to achieve in the next one. Animals live on instinct; their need to survive on a daily basis drives them to look for food, and look for a mate. The passing of time is of no consequence to them; it is their primal nature that tells them that it is “time” to do something.
So should people revert to their primal nature? Should we abandon all sense of time? Well, yes and no. The concept of time has become so omnipotent to the human condition because of our innate understanding of its finality. We feel that with every passing second, we are running out of time and that every second not utilized is a waste. “Dating that guy was such a waste of time.” In essence, our valuation of time comes from our fear of death and fear of what lies beyond.
After, all we only live once, right?
We consume ourselves with markers or checkpoints on the calendar that reminds us of the passing of time. counting seconds with the precision of a brain surgeon but failing to absorb meaning with the attention span of a goldfish. We wear wristwatches and set alarms on our phones to alert us of an event not important enough to commit to memory and check our heavily edited timelines on a daily basis. We are consumed by something that doesn’t even exist.
At the same “time” we cannot do without time. Not merely because everything we do as human beings are programmed around it because of our need to measure. As much as the primal nature of animals is inherently perfect, it is flawed in its inability to allow the animal to be rational and to reason. Our capacity to think and to conceptualize has propelled us to the top of the food chain. Thus, our domination (and destruction) of this planet. We have a need to measure. Measure our years, our successes, our trajectories. “I should be rich by 30.” “I should be married by 25.” “I need to finish by 4 PM.”
This practice, one that we all do, is both positive and negative. It is critical to plan; it’s literally the foundation of success (whatever that is). However, it is an all-consuming exercise. One that generally leads to more stress and unhappiness than it does the opposite. We end up living for benchmarks rather than the experiences within which those benchmarks are to be achieved.
Have you ever achieved something and realized that nothing much has changed now that you have it?
That’s because you are so consumed with attaining a certain goal within a particular period you forget the experience along the way. A full life is not made up of achievements; if it were there would be significantly fewer suicides. A full life is a collective, one that encompasses your achievements and failures on the same side of the coin without the need of a societal, family or personal failures to live up to a standard that is not your own.
I’m not saying be late for every meeting, or don’t worry about missing that deadline. I am saying you need to relax, plan, and smell some roses. You cannot run out of something that doesn’t actually exist. If you don’t believe me, let’s meet up at that café next week on 8 Monday at 5 PM, I promise I won’t be late.
