“There’s no way to have enough time to do all the things you don’t really want to do anyway.”
-Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap
Today’s Daylight Savings shift has us thinking about time. How can something that seems so structured and consistent be so complicated by duality? We never have enough time, yet we waste it by mindlessly scrolling or consuming media that ultimately makes us feel bad. We hurry up to wait. We watch the clock all day at work, and then never feel like we’ve had enough time off by the end of a weekend. We live for our annual vacation and when it arrives, the week flies by and afterward we feel let down and empty.
What if we’ve got our relationship to time all wrong?
According to Gay Hendricks, bestselling author of The Big Leap, the paradigm of Newtonian Time forces us to either have too much time, or not enough. We allow ourselves to become victims to time, and we feel we have little control over it. You know you’ve fallen into this relationship with time if you frequently utter phrases such as, “I’ve got to run or I’m going to be late,” or “I don’t have time to do that.”
Einstein Time, according to Hendricks, is different. To paraphrase, Einstein has famously observed that sitting on a hot stove for a minute feels like an hour, and an hour sitting on a bench with your beloved feels like a minute. In other words, when you are in an expanded, blissful state of being, as when spending time with a lover, time evaporates. Whereas, when you are contracted, in resistance, and/or suffering, time crawls by at a snail’s pace.
This implies that our sense of time is actually coming from ourselves. We are the source of time!
Perhaps you regularly delay the things you really want to do until you’ve finished the things you feel obligated to do. For example, your body and spirit may really want to take a walk, but you’ve got work to finish and a couple of deadlines to meet. So, you hunker down at your computer first thing, but because you’d rather be doing something else, you procrastinate and delay by surfing the web or scrolling social media. Now, half the day has passed and you haven’t gotten very far with your work, nor have you done what you actually wanted to do, which is take a walk.
This bummer relationship to time-management is one we learn from an early age. It has been passed down to us by generations of people who have also been “victims” to time. Nearly every aspect of our culture supports this type of relationship with time.
What if we changed the dynamics?
What if, instead of forcing yourself to sit down and work before meeting your need for exercise and sunshine, you prioritized the things you really want to do instead? (There is so much wisdom in our authentic desires!)
What if you took that walk first, and then sat down at your computer? Sure, you’ll have less time to meet your deadline, but you’ll experience more vitality from the exercise and sunshine, and the window for “time-waster activity,” such as social media scrolling, is narrowed. In the end, you’ll be more efficient and happier. By living more in alignment with your authentic needs and desires, you will get more done (and have more fun).
Another, related concept Gay Hendricks introduces is the “genius zone.” When we in our zone of genius, where creativity flows freely and we are actively pursuing the things that offer us fulfillment and satisfaction, we are living a life that defies our cultural conditioning around time and space. While this is a big, dynamic topic, one takeaway related to developing a new relationship with time is the idea of delegating.
If, for example, you’re in your genius zone when cooking, but cleaning feels like a heavy burden, consider hiring a house cleaner to come a few times a month. This will leave more time for you to create in the kitchen (everybody benefits!). If you want to write a book but your spare time is consumed by taking care of the kids, consider hiring someone to step in a few hours a week and dedicate that time to your writing. If your day is filled with chores that you don’t really want to do, how might you re-prioritize so that it feels more fulfilling?
Your life is precious, and contrary to what we’ve all be conditioned to think, your time is yours. No one else can occupy time the same as you — your relationship with it is as unique as your own fingerprint.
Happy Daylight Savings and #SelfCareSunday! We hope you spend the “extra” hour of daylight doing something you really love.