Time can be on your side

Jefferson Breland

(6/2021) I love writing for Complementary Corner because it affords me the opportunity to share different ways of seeing the world. My goal is to induce curiosity so that you might examine some of these ideas and historical references. There are many books written and whole fields of study about some of the things I mention here. I am not here with the answers. I hope by introducing some different ways of thinking, you might examine your relationship to the world and how you move within it to live more peacefully and therefore, more healthily. I trust you to discover what will help you. If you would like to have a conversation about this, call me.

Some ideas about how the world operates have been with us so long they are invisible. We take them for granted. One such idea is time.

What is time? When did it start? When does it end? Is it found in nature? Who says what the "official" time is? How do we define it as a culture? What is your personal relationship to time? Do you arrive for appointments early? Late? What does being "on time" mean? Does everybody agree on what time is? Do we all experience time the same way? Different professions have different relationships with time. For example, how often does a medical visit start at the appointed time? I get paid by the hour. Some lawyers get paid in 15-minute increments. Some people get paid by the job, like general contractors, whether they finish early or the job takes longer than they thought it would. There is overtime in which suddenly time becomes more valuable than it was a minute ago. In the theater world, "on time" for rehearsal or performance is considered late. Before the invention of accurate clocks, sailors declared noon to be when the Sun was directly overhead regardless of their position on the globe and that was the start of their maritime day and the hourglass was turned.

There are different types of time. There is clock time, sacred time, solar time, and geologic time to name a few. Why do the years seem shorter as we get older? Why are some games measured in time, like basketball or football and others measured by actions, like golf or baseball? Rules, you say? Well, who made up the rules for time? Why do we have different rules around time, like daylight savings time, standard time, time zones. Are years and months the same length? Are days and nights the same length of time? No, even they change a bit everyday in one way or another. There is a point to my rambling here. Time is made up. Time is a construct that allows us to coordinate human activity because as far as I know, humans are the only ones who can read a clock or care about a clock, though, my cats would have me believe differently when it comes time to feed them. Here they are very accurate, though the fall back, spring forward thing, does take some time for them to understand.

It took centuries for cultures around the world to come to a general agreement about our "standardized" time. Particularly with regard to the ideas of years and months. Different cultures have different calendars based on their beliefs. Beliefs. Aye, here’s the rub. Each of us has a slightly different relationship with time because quite frankly, no two people think or experience the world exactly alike. And we do have a general agreement within our culture as to what time is. 365 and 1/4 days per year (the leap year thing), 24 hours per day, 60 minutes per hour, and 60 seconds per minute. Seems pretty straight forward.

In Western cultures, the predominant belief around time is that it is linear and it is limited. These beliefs are linked to definitions of life and after-life and that my friends is a whole other discussion.

So what does this have to do with anything? Our beliefs around time are helpful until they are not. I believe that many of us within this culture, including myself, would benefit from a reassessment or recalibration of our lives with regard to time.

I believe our differing ideas around the concept of time (remember, it is all made up) create a large amount of unnecessary stress. Our lives in recent years seem to have sped up. We don’t have time to do everything we want to do. There are not enough hours in the day. We run out of time. We have to be in two places at once. We race against the clock. We are behind the times. We are ahead of our time. We’re on borrowed time. We kill time. We waste time. We fight against the clock. We multi-task, we schedule too many things to do each day. We fool ourselves again and again that things can get done faster than they really can be done and then when we don’t meet our expectations we considered it a failure and we aren’t good enough and we don’t deserve happiness or to have good things in our lives or to be treated fairly by others. We don’t all experience our days like this. Some people do. I bet you may know someone who creates this kind of suffering within themselves.

In particular, since the invention of the internet, and since the proliferation of cell phones and the expectations of same-day delivery and instantaneous communication, we have warped time and therefore our lives into a potential source of constant disappointment and misunderstanding. This stress has a profoundly negative effect on our health. It does not have to be this way.

Fundamentally, time is a way of describing our relationship to the world around us and coordinating human activity. And as with any relationship that is harmful, my best advice is to shift that relationship. I am not proposing a radical redesign of our lives. Most of us will not simply drop off the grid of civilization. I believe in small and sustainable changes of awareness and shifts in the design of our day.

So what can we do?

One: Remember that time is made up. Clock time is standardized for the sake of coordinating human activity. How we relate to clock time and design ourselves within the structure of clock time is entirely up to us.

Yes, we have work, meetings, meals to prepare for our family, and other meaningful activities. Hear me out.

Two: Do an assessment of your relationship with time. Are there times of the day where you feel stressed? Is that stress "time related?" Write down the circumstances of the stress- the who, what, why, when, where of it. I recommend not using adjectives- just write down the details. Keep it short and to the point. Go through your day and identify each moment of "time crunch" or "time stress." Is there a relationship between earlier time-related stress moments and later ones? Is there a domino effect?

Three: Know that you have choices, however small, around each of these moments. This might seem impossible. At the very least, begin to look for small ways to shift your way of doing things. A simple pro and con list might do the trick. What can you do to help yourself? Can you leave for work a few minutes earlier? Can you go to bed a half-hour earlier so you are more rested? Can you pause and sit quietly for a few minutes to collect your thoughts and calm your heart? Learn how to say, no. You don’t have to agree to do everything asked of you. Can you delegate some of the work expected of you? Can you ask for help? Build a team of helpers. You are worth the effort.

There may be some things you have to do, like be a parent. Begin to practice asking for help. Maybe even practice saying "no" to some of the things people ask of you, I believe you may be surprised by how willing others are to help you and reduce your stress. A few years ago, my mother was complaining that my older brother never did anything to help around the house. I asked, "Do you ask him to help?" She said, "Sure, if I ask him, he helps… (wait for it)… but he should know." It is not always obvious to others that we need help. Don’t assume.

Four: Once you have begun to examine your life where you can take back time for yourself, practice designing your days so that you have more peace and ease with regard to time. There is a good chance that you are very practiced at doing your life a particular way. It will require some conscious effort to shift your ways of doing things. Keep it simple, small, and practical.

When you begin to take care of yourself in this way, you are offering the same opportunity to those around you. You will all benefit from your reduced stress levels and your peace of mind. If you would like to have a conversation about how to begin, call me.

Let time be on your side.

 Jefferson Breland is a board-certified acupuncturist, he can be reached at 410-336-5876. Their office in Gettysburg is located at 249B York Street.