Time.
We measure our entire lives in terms of hours and minutes: how long it takes to get from point A to point B. What time we’re going to eat. How many years someone has been alive.
Seconds within minutes within hours within days within months within years.
Our lives would not function in the same way if we didn’t have such a strict system of measurement. We are constantly afraid of losing time or being late or waiting too long or not waiting long enough. We don’t respond to that text “too quickly” because we don’t want to seem too eager. And we don’t say “I love you” when we want to because it seems “too soon.”
But what if we let go of time just a little? What if we disregarded how many days we’ve been on that diet or how many years it’s been since we’ve seen someone? What if instead we just lived?
Time doesn’t really matter in the end. We all have a different path and it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get somewhere as long as you are happy. Why do we have to set a plan based on a timeline?
Take your time. Go at your own pace. Look, I can’t even find a cliché phrase for this subject that doesn’t involve keeping time in some way.
Disregarding time is easier said than done, though. I am the queen of worrying over time. I stress when I get behind on my pre-planned schedule and I am always 15 minutes early to everything (class, a movie, you name it). I remember how old everyone is, when the last time I spoke to them was and how long it will be until I see them again.
I could stand to take my own advice and let go of time. Let go of the minutes until your next big plan for the day and let go of the need to structure every moment of every day.
I recently spent the afternoon with a friend I hadn’t seen in a very long time. We drank coffee and talked and walked around my city and ate sushi. I grabbed my phone maybe once to check the time and I disregarded every clock I laid my eyes on. And let me tell you something: it was one of the best days I have had in a long time. It was so refreshing to not care what time it was or how long we had been out because I was just enjoying the moments we had with one another.
I hope to live the rest of my life like I lived that afternoon: uninhibited by time. Unconscious of the seconds, minutes and hours ticking by. And completely unaware of the time on the clock, besides a guess based on the color of the sky.
It doesn’t really matter if we know what time it is at every moment of the day because it doesn’t change much. If you are constantly late to everything, chances are, you will continue to be late to things. And if you’re early, you will continue to be early. But your happiness is not based on what time it is on a lazy Sunday and it is not based on how long you have known someone. Happiness just happens, despite what the clock or calendar reads.
