On Time

I’ve spent a good amount of 2022 gallivanting, and it has been excellent. For the first Time in my life, I had what I think Balance must look like - a job that sufficiently satisfied me, hours that gave me an opportunity to create something outside of work, a regular cafe that entertained me, and mindspace that nourished me. In a first, I even found a way to get involved with the community, helping with the Ukrainian humanitarian response in the Netherlands - which has been a fascinating study of human emotion and civic functioning. To a large extent this new way of life has been possible thanks to a mindset shift in reprioritizing the place of work in my life, seeing it less as an anchor and more a means to an end. It has meant deliberately reducing the status of my brain as my most valuable asset and elevating the status of other organs, and the ever ethereal mind to a tied first place.

There was a Time when I had a jam-packed schedule. The morning alarm was set backwards from when I needed to start work, and the dinner plan, if any, was made calculating ahead from when I could pause work. Time in between was rationed on personal must-dos, showering was definitely always a pre-work activity, and weekday fun was restricted to ingestion based pursuits. For years I felt that that way of spending time was an investment towards a good future, even if it overwhelmed me and even if I often felt it would be nice to have the “luxury” to have abundant Time.

But, having set up a life where my Time is better balanced now, I find that on the side opposite to Work on the balancing beam currently lies - oh no, Nothingness. Now that I have entered that phase of adulting where I can put an (Indian grade) meal together in 1 hour, there have been Times where I have looked at the Time, noted that it’s 6pm, realized I have finished my work, cooking, and “extra” activities for the day, e.g. a coffee with a friend or producing an unnecessary pie, and still have Time to spare before it would be acceptable to my inner youth to go to bed. Friends and the husband are not available to spend so much Time with, and there is only so much joy Netflix can spark. Alas, inner me thinks, what do I do now? Should I get a pet? Birth a child? Go on an impromptu run? Or do the most obvious thing - fire up my laptop, and start on tomorrow’s work today. And that is when I realize that I now have the luxury of time, and I now need to climb the hill of Choice. Being a busybee gave me the ease of not having to make choices with my time - every morning I jumped on the metaphorical treadmill, and obeyed the commands of what felt like the Auto program. Creating Time was akin to canceling the Auto Program, and now I feel sane but sedentary.

Which brings me to what I believe is the next phase of my personal development. Now that I have found the tools to create the time, I need to do some serious thinking on how I want to fill it. Who do I want to be, when I’m not a busybee? A Netflixer? A writer? An athlete? A mom? A chef? A scuba diver? A reader? A do-a-little-of-everything-er? A couch potato?

I have a question for the enduring souls who have reached the end of this post - do you believe that how you spend your days is how you spend your life? So, are you how you spend your hours, more or are you your thoughts, aspirations, and relationships?