Keeps on slippin, slippin...

Much has been said about time during this… well, time. (The Covidian Age, I imagine that it might be called someday.) “Out of work, I’ve suddenly found myself with all this time.” Or, “Between working and home-schooling and this and that, there is no time.”

Of course, the peculiar thing about time is that there is not more or less of it for anyone. It’s only about how we choose to spend our time, and maybe more precisely, how we hold our relationship with the passing of time, and the related choices we make (in actions and attitudes).

After sitting with some ideas presented in Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness and Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh, I’ve been inspired to explore a practice in mindset shifting.

I could categorize time into time for work, time for helping the kids, time for housekeeping, time for cooking, time for teaching yoga, time for sleeping, time for the etc etc etc… and after all that is said and done, I’m left with a minuscule sliver of time I’ve claimed as “my” time, and precious little at best.

What I wonder: could I consider ALL of it as my time? Or more precisely, could I frame the passages of time differently: “the time I spend with my children, helping them learn,” “the time I spend caring for my home, in gratitude,” “the time I spend with friends at work solving problems and dreaming new possibilities,” “the time I spend sitting or walking, and simply being.” What if I view ALL of that as my time (which it is)?

In business, and in life, there are webinars and books and endless resources that shout about “time savers,” and “efficiency gains,” and “increasing productivity.” But the trap is that time is really not something that anyone can save. One can only spend time. It’s how you choose to spend time that matters, and how you frame up that choice in your mind that liberates.