Just another 15 minutes please…
“Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so” is a quote from one of my all time favorite books, Hitch hikers guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. However this seems to be a very true statement. I hear this phrase ” just another 15 minutes please” with different permutations such as in the context ” I need just another 15 minutes” or ” I wish I had just another 15 minutes to myself in my day” or ” See you in just another 15 minutes.” Basically, implying that we are constantly running behind time. Do we have so many chores and things to do that there is just not enough time in the day to do them or do we crave that extra breathing time from moment to moment ? Why not another hour in our day for ourselves? What is most valuable these days is not gold, or silver, but time management seems to have become the new hot commodity. We all desire and need more time. We are always running out of it and soon enough our allotted stay on this planet abruptly ends like a parking meter, and out pops the sign EXPIRED. Even if you were immortal you would still run out of time.
So how do we get back just another 15 minutes or more. Sure,the more we try to manage the time, the more we fail. Such is the nature of another important commodity, money. If we do not plan our finances properly, they run out, so too is the issue with time. Planning your day is important, but be a spendthrift and spend some time for yourself. I find that 10 minutes every day saved up for myself to be alone with my thoughts, and in silent meditation significantly recharges me that I find myself “earning time” later in the day.I try to reuse this earned time ( or mileage points ) to spend more quiet time with myself and before I know it I have recuperated an hour of “my time.”
Quantum physics will explain that time is finite. Some religions will preach time is infinite or others will explain it in either linear or circular dimensions. Whatever your idea of time, the mind can play tricks leading you to either not enough or an abundance of time left. It is your mind’s perspective. Perhaps cutting back on unnecessary chores, or not being in so much control of everything around you, will enable you to collect a few seconds, gather up then a few minutes, then who knows maybe store up even an hour or two !!
Another trick I utilize is that I wear no watch. I have discovered that I have developed an innate sense of time, that was lost to me for so many years while wearing a watch. I am freer, I get more accomplished and invariably ahead of schedule. When you are bound to a device such as your phone, your wrist watch or a clock, you are always pressured and so may lose the ability to feel the moment and experience it as it passes. This was quite disorienting for me without a doubt for the first few days, but then my natural sense ( that we are all born with) took over and guided me better throughout my busy day. We work harder and harder to get more and more and then have to work harder still to maintain that new lifestyle or balance. We work more, spend more “time”, and end up just being miserable. Hence we need vacations. To get away from it all we goto better vacation resorts, and then run around exhausted and then need “time”when we return to get our breath back. Then work more to pay for the vacation and so the false illusion of time manifests itself. If all we need is time to connect to our-Self, then geography is not going to make that happen, since you can connect with your-Self and the universe and all around you at any moment at ANY time.
Being in the moment, being still, being timeless, recharges you more than you can ever expect. Listen to everything and react to nothing. See everything around you, and react to nothing. Smell everything around you and react to nothing. Take a lesson from nature. It is the same energy that you were born with, reconnect to it and you will find that you do not need just another 15 minutes. Moreover you will have more than enough time to enjoy your life.
Time is an illusion, but you are not. What are you going to do in the next 15 minutes that you have earned today?
