What is it about time? Some moments last forever while others pass so quickly it’s like they didn’t even happen. And as we grow older, time seems to fly … whether we’re having fun or not, heh.
“Time is an illusion,” Albert Einstein said. He was right. And yet time is one of the most real limiting factors we experience in daily living.
Not to bellyache about first world problems too much, but adulthood in America kind of stinks sometimes … mainly because it feels like we have so many things to do, so many responsibilities tugging at us, and not enough time to accomplish them all. Sadly, we do it ourselves.
The more time-saving conveniences we acquire, the busier we seem to be! At first it was cars, dishwashers, laundry machines and vacuum cleaners. Now it’s the grocery store and the dry cleaners delivering to our doors. (The 10 minutes it’d take to drive to either of those places is just.too.much…)
Plus, we have smartphones so we can fill up any random free moments communicating, scheduling and keeping up on the news. We can even (sort of) instantly catch up with friends thanks to Facebook and Instagram, etc.
We have more convenient, fast-track tools at our fingertips than human beings have ever had. And yet we find ourselves as a society more stressed and rushed and rest-deprived than ever. What’s up with that?
For one thing, we don’t allow these tools to make our lives easier. Instead, we know we can do things faster so we jam more things into life.
The fact that laundry is now basically a matter of sorting clothes and tossing them into a machine with some detergent we buy from the store doesn’t mean we have more time to sit and read novels while eating bonbons.
Nope. The truth is that the bar we set simply adjusts to a higher mark. Now that we can get more done in a day, we assume that we should.
When people had to ride in a horse-drawn buggy to get places, do you think they put their kids in a ridiculous number of after school activities—soccer, dance, music, etc.—and ran errands all over town every week?
Fact is, we give lip service to time management for a better life, but then get caught up in the bustle of it all. We have the same amount of time per day that humans have always had. But much of the multitude we accomplish in that time does not relate to survival or even meet any fundamental human needs. The cost is something that, for many of us, feels far more scarce than time: Energy.
Albert Einstein never said that was an illusion.
What if we should re-conceptualize? What if it’s more important to manage our energy than our time?
Tune in next week for practical tips on HOW to do this.
Have any stellar energy/time management tips for us? Please send us a comment—we’d love to hear from you!