YOML 163: Values are how I keep track of my time these days!
0Reflection Title: Values are how I keep track of my time these days!
Book – The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
Book Description: In Mitch Albom's newest work of fiction, the inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.
Reflection:
Time is an ingenious human invention and immensely valuable social construct. Time coordinates the world and pushes us forward whether we like it or not. I remember learning in the book, Sapiens, that time as we know it today was originally created to coordinate the new invention of train travel as it went from town to town in Great Britain in the mid-1800’s to make sure that people could get to their factory on time to keep the world humming at peak efficiency.
What an ingenious invention to coordinate the masses to ensure that we are able to operate at peak efficiencies to push this world forward and feed the growth monster of modern times. Time management has become an incredibly powerful modern skill that needs to be mastered to effectively navigate this world. Time management is an industry in itself. There are countless books, guru’s, and courses you can pay exurbanite amounts of money to learn how to maximize your time and productivity. There are thousands of tools and technologies you can leverage to help you better “manage” your time.
Our lives are incredibly coordinated and synchronized by time in the modern world. We are startled awake by our cell phone alarm clocks to race out of bed, clean up in a hurry, get everything ready for the day, smash some unhealthy breakfast food quickly, get the kids changed and in the car to take them to daycare, race to work to make sure we aren’t late, jump from meeting to meeting all day long, smash some more food in the one 30 minute “open” window we can find at some point during the work day where we are still multi-tasking, pick up the kids, race back home to take the kids to whatever after school activities they have, finally sit down to watch our late night news or favorite TV show with dinner in our laps, go to bed, and wake up to do it all over again.
This was very similar to my life, minus the kids’ stuff, before I met my daughter. That isn’t to say I wasn’t happy…I was. I measured my life by how many items I could cross off my to-do list with my time. Time management, daily task lists, and getting stuff done were the most important things in my world. I was pretty damn good at it, and it made me happy. Looking back, I guess I got a tiny dopamine hit every time I got to cross something off my to-do list? I lived for that moment when you finally got to sit back, have a glass of wine, and think about your day and all that you had accomplished. I loved the feeling of being a whirlwind of frantic activity and feel like you really kicked time’s ass on that particular day by getting so much done. That used to be what I valued the absolute most in this world, but it always felt a little empty and unfulfilling if I was being honest.
Then, I met Emilia. She changed everything almost overnight. Experiencing what we experienced together reframed life and what was most important to me in this world in a dramatic way. I no longer cared about accomplishing tasks, getting stuff done, living by a clock, checking things off my to do list, etc. All I cared about was spending as much time as we could with her while she was still able to be with us in this world. I watched how incredibly she fought for a chance at life in this world. I observed the incredible range of the human condition in all of its simultaneous beauty and tragedy. She showed me what this life was really all about and what it meant to be human.
When we lost her, time as I knew it ceased to exist in my world in a lot of ways. My whole world came to a crashing halt. I stopped making plans for the future or worrying about what I was able to get accomplished in the day. Emilia showed me a different path of living that wasn’t guided by a clock, rather, by living a life of value and how to be a human. With each day since we’ve lost her, I do my best to follow her footsteps in all that I do.
Values, and not time, are how I measure my time each day and I’ve never been more fulfilled.
Question: How do you measure the impact of your time in this world?