Time Is the Cosmic Joke

The circadian rhythms by which plants, animals and young children live suggest that “body time” is realer than “clock time.” When we are run solely by clock time we lose much of the joy and vitality waiting to be tapped in each waking moment of Now. Our spontaneity and creativity are generated outside of measurable time, so by visiting there we gain ideas and products to be used within real-time.

Free yourself from the tyranny of time by changing the way you look at it. View time and space as they come to you in the form of experiences and relationships. Revisit your aspirations, dreams and hopes regularly. Observe the perpetual current of thoughts and emotions that arise within you. Life is manifesting itself richly in all these ways, to all of which clock time is totally irrelevant. Some tips for changing the way you perceive and experience time:

Enter the day.
Get up early when the house is quiet, and spend some time being calm and contemplative. Write in a journal, or seek quiet inspiration from books or scriptures that will stay with you throughout the hours ahead. Resolve never again to “hit the ground running.”

Unmask a clock.
Get a clock and look at it. See it for what it is, a simple repeating machine, not unlike a metronome. The intervals it measures are purely arbitrary, made up by someone and agreed-to by all. Keeping time is merely keeping an agreement. Reflect on the absurdity of having your life, even a day of it, run by a tick-tock machine.

Make time go away.
During one of your morning reflections, think about those times when you are so into what you are doing that time is absent and unimportant. Write down a list of endings for the phrase, “Time goes away when . . . ” Look over the list and ask yourself, what are the patterns? What is repeatable about such times? Devise ways to incorporate those elements into more of what you do at work.

Relax and concentrate.
Adopt a philosophy of, “Don’t hurry. Don’t stop.” Resolve to do each thing you do today well and with concentration and relaxation. Whenever you are tempted to rush, resist it. Take a few deep breaths, relax, and concentrate. The paradox is, keeping to the don’t-hurry-don’t-stop rule saves time.

Delegate.
Recall sick days when the world went on without your help, when others somehow did what you thought only you could do. Think of sharing duties as giving the gift of contributing to others. Every day review your to-do list to see what items can be delegated, or the responsibility shared. Gladly and without guilt present these to others.

Be time-rich.
A good mantra is: “I have all the time in the world to do the right thing I came to this moment to do.” As you work from a time-rich instead of a time-famished base, you’ll get far more done in far less time -- and enjoy it more.

Celebrate a slow-down.
Whenever you get behind a slow driver or experience any other delay, heave a sigh and thank your heavens for reminding you that you have all the time in the world.

Arrive refreshed.

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