Time. What is time? Time obviously exists independent of us. However time is also largely- as one of my law lecturers would remind us- a social construct. The fact that is the time is 10:47am as I write these very words right now, is not some universal truth. It is a reference to the system we as a global society have created in order to track time, in reference to the Sun’s position to us and vice versa. To return to the former point though, even without the system of time we have created, the fact remains that I am writing these words at a specific point in time, which to me right now is in the present, but when you read this, will be in the past, and when I woke up this morning, was to come in the future.
That is all to say, that time is a funny kind of thing. Something we all know, can understand and abide by (we have no choice about that), yet not quite. There is something about time that eludes our understanding: it is measurable, but the idea of it having a beginning or end is bamboozling. And no matter how we try to manipulate it, twist and turn it, in our day-to-day life we never seem to have quite enough time.
We always seem to need an extra hour in the day, an extra day in the week, an extra week in the month, and so on. We always seem to almost have enough, but not quite enough. Well, let me ask you a question- and you must think about your answer and respond truthfully- if hypothetically, by some cosmic miracle, we all of a sudden had 26 hours in the day instead of 24, would you have 2 hours free each day?
The answer to that question is: absolutely not. Why? There is something about us that ensures we always use up whatever time we have. We have a project at work or at home, that is easy enough and should only take 3 days or so, but we have the luxury of not having anything else on our plate for the week, that needs urgently attending to. Low and behold, the project that should have only taken us 3 days somehow took us the entire week to complete. The same goes for any assignment we were set at college or university. If you or anyone you know, ever submitted an assignment any day other than the one on which it was due, please let me know, because as far as I am aware no such human, no such student, exists.
There is something about the way we are wired, which means something will take us however long we give ourselves to complete it. This can be a disheartening realisation; we will never be free of the social construct of time. On the other hand, this can be an empowering revelation. You can either let time control you, or you can flip the switch and you can control time. The project that you have given yourself a whole day to do: tell yourself you have to do it in half a day. Book something in the second half of the day, commit to doing something with a friend in the second half of the day, whatever it takes to manipulate time by creating the necessity for you to complete that project in half of the time. I guarantee you: you will somehow get it done. In a world where we are incessantly busy, do not be a slave to the system of time. Make it work to your schedule. Time is just a social construct at the end of the day- no pun intended. Construct it, so you never run out of time again.
Have a blessed day- however many hours yours consists of.
This is so true, we can so easily become a slave to time.