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Not Enough Time?--All We Have Is Time!
Why is it that we never have enough time?
Posted February 17, 2010
So How Much Time Do We Have?
Every year of our lives, we use up an average of 8,766 hours. Every ten years, 87,660 hours. If our lives extend only to age 50, we'll still have 438,300 hours to achieve whatever goals we've set for ourselves. If we make it to 60, we've got a total of 525,960 hours at our disposal--to handle priorities, fulfill obligations, meet interesting people, pursue personal interests, travel to exotic lands, contribute to the lives of others, etc. Should we last till 70, we'll have no fewer than 613,620 hours to work with. Age 80 will bring our temporal supply up to 701,280 hours--surely a sufficient amount of time to enable us to realize our most cherished hopes and dreams.
Not to belabor the point, but should we make it to 90, we'll be blessed with 788,940 hours to experience all there is to experience in a lifetime. And should we actually become centenarians--and hopefully, achieve this milestone not in a state of decrepitude but in reasonably good health--we'll have no fewer than 876,600 hours to attain a state of contentment and well-being, which in all our years--or hours!--may have eluded us. Sure, we'll need to be Platinum Metal Champions of Aging (i.e., make it past 114) to actually get to the million hour mark. But, finally, just how long do we have to live to have enough hours to feel that we've had adequate time to accomplish pretty much everything we set out to do?
True, we're obliged to subtract about a third from the different totals above to make allowances for sleep--assuming we're fortunate enough to get eight unabridged hours of daily slumber. And we must also make allowances for the time involved in taking care of basic bodily needs (not to mention all the hours necessary just to make a living or maintain our home). But the key point here is that unless we die at an unusually early age, all of us should have more than enough time to achieve anything half-way realistic we might aspire to. So if we always seem to be falling behind in our various pursuits--or, because of time constraints, abandoning them altogether--we must examine how well we've been using this most plentiful (but hardly inexhaustible) temporal resource.
It's of course possible that our quest to reach our goals--or simply to get things done generally--is derailed simply because our standards for accomplishment are too lofty. Perfectionist criteria can "devour" available time like nothing else. Yet for the vast majority of us, the key reason we "don't have enough time" is that we never adequately clarify how much time we should be devoting to the different things we most value. If we keep running out of time, it's typically because we spread ourselves too thin.
How to Free Ourselves from Time Traps of Our Own Making
In essence, our problem is that we fail to systematically set priorities for our life. And--independent of how long we live--if we don't discriminate between what's primary to us and all that's secondary, we'll never have enough time. For, regardless of whatever wondrous medical breakthroughs might occur in our lifetime, immortality simply isn't in the cards for us. Despite our immutable human limits, however, many of us live as though we'll be around forever. In fact, one assumption closely linked to our tendencies to procrastinate is that we can always deal with something later . . . a hypothetical "later" that may never occur.
Finally, the result of our common (though largely unconscious) denial of death is that only rarely do we actually sit down and plan--or prioritize--how we'll use our considerable (though mortal) allotment of time on planet earth. What, instead, so many of us do is unwittingly squander our time, then rationalize our temporal failures by employing the age-old adage, "There's never enough time." That, we mistakenly reason, explains why we haven't achieved what we'd hoped to. But ultimately, the responsibility for not accomplishing what may have been most important to us lies not with the "stinginess" of time--but with our misguided use of it.
The solution to this almost universal (but in the end, human-made) quandary should be plain enough. At some point, we've simply got to seriously reflect upon what we most care about. Given who we are--and who we aspire to be--what is it that we most treasure? Most revere? Take most heartfelt pleasure in? Most profoundly believe in? Most wish to commit ourselves to? And so on.
Doubtless, the whole notion of prioritizing is hardly anything we're unfamiliar with. But how many of us have taught ourselves to become aware--acutely aware--of what, realistically, we can achieve within a given time frame? After all, if we became really clear about what's most meaningful to us--what, that is, would best enable us to express who we are to the fullest--we should be able to "schedule" our life accordingly. And we'll almost certainly discover that there is enough time--that, in fact, there's plenty of time--to bring our hopes and ambitions, our dreams and desires, to full fruition.
Of course, arranging our time in such ideal fashion may necessitate eliminating many pursuits to which we've assigned subordinate status. If we have a multitude of interests, we'll obviously need to cut some of them out--or at least cut back on them. Although the amount of time we have to work with may be abundant, it's not limitless either. Additionally, the amount of energy we can give to whatever might feel most valuable or vital to us is, alas, also finite.
How realistic, for example, is it to seek within a circumscribed time period to learn a foreign language, read at least one new book per week, learn a musical instrument, remain socially active, and raise two or three children? If we can't, or won't, admit that we simply don't have enough time to simultaneously satisfy all these ambitions, then we're just not willing to confront the fact of our unalterable human limitations. And, to be sure, this is how so many of us repeatedly set ourselves up for failure.
As I've already stressed, as long as they're reality-based, we should have ample time to actualize our most coveted hopes and dreams--even truly "visionary" ones. But if we're to do so, we're still obliged to scrupulously make choices and eliminate pursuits of lesser significance. We need painstakingly to determine what, ultimately, is most likely to fulfill us. If we don't get greedy, time is really on our side. It's our ally. (As I once, half-jokingly, opined to a friend, "Immortality might not be such a good thing. For if we actually possessed it, how would we ever pace ourselves?!")
So, in the end, the choice is ours. Do we want constantly to have so much on our plate that only rarely can we complete things as we'd wish to--and so chronically experience a sense of frustration, or futility? Or, at every turn, can we mindfully select that which feels most intriguing to us--and devote the considerable amount of time that will then be at our disposal to achieve it?
Almost always we'll be required to make certain sacrifices at the hallowed alter of Time. But will we not be more pleased, satisfied, and "complete"--in a word, happier--if we utilize our generous allotment of this most precious commodity to focus on those things that promise us the richest rewards? . . . The answer should be obvious.
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