Time

Time. Time is what YOU create. And nothing else.

This is a very interesting topic. Time. Time seems to be so scarce in our current environment and society. It's rushing from A to B and trying to get stuff done within a certain time frame and then you still have ‘no time' to do for example little things like a visit to a somebody, do write that document or have a relaxing bath or walk around the block. 'I can't, I don't have time' is what you hear a lot. Rings a bell? :) Or ”Time is moving so quickly” is another sentence you hear often. I do that too. Many times, I think I don't have time for some things. But after reading a few books and specifically one book with a certain chapter in that has caught my attention (I will get to that in a moment) Have you ever observed the situation you were in or yourself when you say: “I don't have time”? In what situations, to whom, etc. ?

There is actually no “I don't have time”. You choose to “not have time”, you don't own time, it is not something you have or not have. I actually think (and you might agree with me once you observe yourself a bit better in those situations) that when you say to something or somebody “I don't have time for this” or “ I don't have time to do this right now” that you actually mean 'I don't WANT to do this now'.

Gay Hendricks, Author of “The Big Leap”, calls this the Newtonian Time Paradigm. Due to Hendricks, human beings have been conditioned to live the Newtonian Time Paradigm. Which basically explains that time is limited. We only have a limited amount of time available to us, which then leads to feelings of discomfort and being rushed. We fear running out of time at some stage.

However, Hendricks goes on to change that thinking and living in Einstein Time. Based on Albert Einstein’s research and experiments Einstein says: ”An hour with your beloved feels like a minute; a minute on a hot stove feels like an hour”. So, it actually depends on what we do, time seems to slow down or passes faster and space seems to narrow or expand around us. Or in other words: When you do something you love – in my case being creative and create like graphic designs and art or gardening – the amount of time that you have seems vast. 1 hour of doing something you love doing will feel like 1 minute, whereas 1 minute doing something that you do not enjoy doing could feel like an hour. Are you getting the picture?

So how could I start to live in this ‘Einstein Time’ I asked myself. You need to be present, present in the current moment, mindful, aware of where you are at any one time, understanding that everywhere you are at that very moment is the right place to be in at that time. You need to allow space to come into yourself and embrace it – knowing you are where you should be and when you should be right now.

When I did read that it clicked in my head. You start to observe yourself and find (well, for my part) that this is true. You are where time comes from, you are the very own master of your time, you set time, you are time and you will and can make enough of it so you won't be late for anything.

It was not easy to understand it at first when I read it, but once I unintentionally put it into practice I got what it meant. I need to practically apply things to understand them or get them in my head. So I had a few encounters where I realized that this guy Gay Hendricks is so right. I am driving in my car to get to work on time but have other cars in front of me. I could have gotten twitchy and angry that the cars in front of me drove slower than the actual speed limit looking at the time ticking away. But at this moment I chose not to. I chose to be here in the car right now and not anywhere else. Guess what, still, with all that traffic I arrived perfectly in time. This is just one situation but I have repeated it many times since then and every time I arrived exactly when I should have.

Another book I absolutely loved reading was ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle and his definition of the source of stress: “Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there”.

Try it out yourself - go on. The next time you think you might be late for something chose to relax, chose to put your mind at ease and allow yourself to be here where you are right now.

And try to stop complaining about time (if you ever have of course). It is probably the most common complaint you can hear. Whenever you complain about time you chose to be the victim and time is your persecutor. Give it a go. Be mindful, be in the present at any given situation. And let me know how you go.