Time (the #1 complaint of modern humans)
How often do you complain about time, or hear someone else complain about it?
My guess: nearly constant.
Here’s what I see to be true when it comes to the modern human being and their relationship with Time.
We demonize time, we blame everything under the sun for the apparent lack of it, and we fiercely claim ourselves the “victim” of NOT ENOUGH TIME.
This is not only a losing battle, it is a major source of suffering!
Fortunately, I’ve got some super helpful reframes to help you out.
First, a question: Is it true that you make time for things?
(work, play, sex, studying, meals, exercise...)
Yes, of course you do.
Conclusion: That means you are a maker of time!
If you are capable of making time (for anything you deem important), that makes you are a manufacturer of time.
And if you are a maker of time, then you can make time to do all the things you really want to do!
The real ass kicker: Accepting responsibility and not blaming "time "for our decisions.
What happens all too often is we demonize and make a villain of this faceless entity named Time.
(I can almost picture him as a conniving, shadowy figure hiding in the corners, calculating ways to steal away precious moments of our day from us.)
This is total lunacy, of course.
[Huge gratitude to Gay Hendricks, who speaks about these concepts in his book The Big Leap. I highly recommend!]
Let’s dive slightly deeper into this topic by looking at an example that Gay uses in his book, which I will paraphrase for you here:
Let's imagine a father and son. The father is a businessman and the sun is waiting for a long-promised afternoon game of catch in the front yard. Holding a baseball and his mitt he wanders (again) into his father's office to inquire when this game of catch is going to happen. At long last the father, frustrated and exasperated with his work, tells his son in a somewhat harsh tone, "I just don't have time for this right now. I'm sorry."
This is a scene straight out of probably 100 different movies, and what I want to point out here is what the father said is a complete and total lie.
Let's revisit his language, (which we all use constantly): "I don't have time for this right now."
Phrasing it in that way removes all responsibility from the person uttering those words. It puts the entire blame on the entity of time and makes us a victim. This is simply not accurate, not to mention incredibly disempowering.
Here's a more accurate, honest, truthful way that this storybook father could have relayed the disappointing news to his son:
"Son, I'm truly sorry, I didn't do a good job managing my tasks today and it doesn't feel responsible for me to stop this project right now. I know I made a promise that I can't keep, I acknowledge that. Here's how I will make it up to you."
This example reveals the reason why most of us avoid taking responsibility: it's painful.
Taking responsibility for how we utilize each and every moment of our day can actually be excruciating when we begin to really observe and own the decisions we've been making.
When you begin to perceive time as a ALLY rather than an enemy, you create a new system of task management and peaceful productivity that will make your old, outdated, defunct system obsolete.
“Not enough time” is such a pressing, painful and chronic issue for so many of us.
If you use words and phrases that put you in the seat of the victim, such as:
"there's not enough time" or "I don't have enough time" or "there's never enough time"
"I'm too busy"
"I'm running late" or "I'm always running late" or "I'm a procrastinator"
"I can't do ask because I don't have the time"
"what happened to the time?" or "where did the time go?"
… then I hope you’ll consider taking a time complaints detox, as Gay recommended in The Big Leap, where you vow 3-5 days of refraining from any and all complaints about time (and the lack thereof).
It's also worth mentioning that if scarcity thinking has you on the run in one area of your life, it is likely haunting you in other areas as well.
This work of befriending your relationship with Time is a big step in jumping off the hamster wheel of fear-based lack mentality and behaviors, and embracing the remembrance of your true belonging to a life where you are enough, there is enough, and you have everything you need to thrive, right now.
What would it feel like to truly, sincerely feel that there is more than enough time?
(Seriously. Sit with that for a minute and see what happens in your body.)
The potential awaiting you on the other side of this transformation is no less than a life and a mind liberated from the false, fear-based notion that you must prove yourself worthy to simply exist.
Let your old “not enough time” beliefs die, and breathe life into a new path of peaceful productivity.
In your corner as you kick “not enough time” to the curb,
