Only So Much Time To Care

Only so much time to care.

The only currency with true value is the amount of time we have. Each day we are granted 86,400 seconds to live, then we do it again, until one day we won’t. Somedays, it’s not enough time and others, it appears to drag on to no end. Time is a fickle thing. When we enjoy ourselves, time seems to slip right through our hands, but if we must wait for 1 minute to microwave something, it’s the longest minute in history.

It’s not that our time is wasted, its spent on lackluster things. How much time have we mindlessly scrolled or watched shows we didn’t even like? Few people would say social media is making us a better community overall. That is still to be, at least, questioned. There is always the next scandal or anger or fearmongering thing to get us to obsess time over things that are out of our control for almost years at a time. People are desperate for your attention to get you to buy something or think as they do. This is no better. Right now, you could be working on the most important thing of your life or thinking about what the most important thing in your life is. At this second you spend your currency on me. Thanks, I appreciate it. I could do something other than write with my time, but I want to work on it. This is my investment.

In the background, I have been reading “4000 Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman. After I set my weekly intention now dealing with this 86,400 second notion, I received notification about a waitlisted book from the internet library. (Get a library card! You can get thousands of books online!) It felt like it was supposed to be this way. After the Einstein biography and “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari, time is interesting to think about.

Since we have been around for 200,000 years, we get maybe 80 years of life. This is the concept of “4000 Weeks”. This is equal to 0.04% of all human time. My life, your life, your family, your friends are about 0.04% of HUMAN time. How much was before us? Billions of years.

Our miraculous human life exists as a split second of total time. Then how much time was there before the Big Bang. Life is the slowest quick thing and the quickest slow experience we will ever know.

While proofreading some of this, I realized I can sound negative. As if life itself doesn’t matter because it’s over within moments of its start. Even as we age, the years start to pass at exponential speeds. Think back to a child in “timeout,” 5-10 minutes was a lifetime of waiting, but that 5-10 minutes was a larger percent of life. I can admit years have started to blend together or think that 15 years ago was not that long ago. Instead of worrying about the next minute, sometimes its pleasant to take a moment to yourself and how you deal with your time here. Remember, this ride must end at some point. Time is not stopping for you. How will you spend your time?

Here are some things that help me or that I’m working on. Keep in mind I waste my currency too. I am far from perfect.

·         Not every day needs to be optimized. We should be able to give ourselves a break, but how do we use it. I had realized that I was running myself extremely hard. Training 4-6 days a week, working full-time, coaching soccer 3 days a week, teaching upwards of 8 sessions per week, and lastly trying to start a business was exhausting. Include all the cooking, cleaning, reading, writing, parties, well… life. This is not some attempt to tell others to work this hard. I don’t recommend it. I’m accustomed to working 7 days a week for months at a time, eventually something must give. No person is designed to sprint infinitely. Therefore, even with the importance of using time effectively, it’s paramount to allow rest and recovery. I need to remind myself the path is still there. It’s good to stop once and a while to ensure you can’t lose sight of what is essential.

·         Sleep 28,800 seconds of it (8 hours). Sleep is the best recovery tool we have in our arsenal. It’s the full ability to allow your body to repair and process all the information you received.

·         See if you can group several tasks all together not requiring your full attention and/or can operate in the background. When I schedule time to cook or (meal prep), I run the dishwasher and the laundry all at once. I try to set it where I can run the crockpot and then I can sit still and read as all my other tasks are automated. When I don’t want to read, I can chop vegetables or brine meat. Get out ahead of something that is going to cause stress over later smaller tasks. But who hasn’t told you to prepare for the future before. When we group tasks like this, we can prepare our future self the joy of not having an excuse.

·         Evaluate smart home products to set tasks. For as many people worried about Alexa, and all it hears, I’m not special enough to worry about any sort of tracking of my daily sounds or activities. Honestly, you can ask me damn near anything, and I’ll give my viewpoint or how-to undoubtedly. A large section of my home is automated to do simple things. The lights all turn off or have their schedules to what my day calls for. There is still a routine to turn on the bar lights at 5pm on Friday and turn off a few hours later. I have tasks set at home to remind me or manage the petty things I forgot, like garbage or to take my vitamins. The Nest thermostat has it schedule. (There is still a government rebate…) Speakers announce things when they are programmed. It removes my thinking about trivial things, so I focus on something else.

·         Give yourself a few adjectives to call yourself and how you can behave more like that version of you would. (Think kindly, you do awesome shit all the time.) For example, I wish to be smarter. So, what to smart people do? How do smart people behave? How do smart people spend their time?

·         Set up a loose schedule of the important things on your plate. Set objective things to improve yourself to your standard. For me, the important things on my list are simple things. Learn, Train, Teach. If I spend my time on those tasks, or make sure I focus on when I can, I can work on that “infinitely.” It’s not always the same things. What I want to learn can change, my training can change, I can teach others, but these are pivotal to who I know myself to be.

·         Each hour is 4% of your day. You can always watch the next episode, but you give your life to it.

·         Take advantage of the morning even 20 mins can be useful. An early peaceful morning gives you a perceived longer day. This early morning can help you reflect on where you are going, what are you going to spend your time on. How many people are still asleep at 5am? Most. But using any of this time is so beneficial to planning and reflecting. I fell for the pattern, go to sleep at the last second, then wake up as close to the last second as possible. This would lend to a (hungover) or simply confusing frantic scavenger hunt to rush out the door. I did not start a lot of days happy or giving myself time to plan out what the day could be. I just gave myself anxiety and worry.

·         Learn to be present. I absolutely hated this concept. I would be attending several yoga classes a week and the intention would come up constantly. Be present, and I’m in my head screaming, “I’m here right now, how the fuck can I be more here!?” But now I start to recognize these moments where breathing is priority. Those moments where my eyes can see what is occurring, but no picture could ever do it justice. Those moments where my body gives in and relaxes and really be aware of all the cool shit happening. Try watching the grass grow or paint dry, it’s dumb, but at the same time, there is some miraculous about the transformations of everything around becoming the next thing it is to be.

This life starts and is over so quickly. I remind myself that is not that life is short, but how can I fully experience all the things I can before life is done. So many of us have lives that feel stagnate or we worry about what is to come next, and then we spend years or decades holding on to things that can’t serve us. If you were given $86,400 every day and had to spend it, what would you spend it on? If someone stole $3,600, would you use the remainder to try and get that $3,600 back?