There's not enough time?

13. October 2005

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. – Albert Einstein

When considering issues of abundance we cannot fail to question what it is we value in our lives and why we may desire more of one thing and less of something else including time.

What is a life? A period of time experienced as a human being living on Earth. Thats about it. We live a life of experiences, memories; references points along the journey. We have only a limited amount of life time and yet on a felt level we notice that sometimes time seems to drag by or else rush past. Our felt experience of time is not actually linear even if our watches and clocks tell us that it is. Why?

I suggest that this directly relates to how fully, consciously present we are in this very moment. If we are concerned about the future and highly aware of everything else that we want or feel we have to do then we will feel short of time, anxious and hurried. This is because part of our consciousness is split into the future rather than being fully present in the moment. If we really dislike what we are doing and cannot wait for time to pass so that we can get on with what we do like then we will find that time drags. Again we are not fully consciously present but rather splitting our consciousness into the present and the future or even past present and future if we are also daydreaming about good times past.

In western society our cultural tendency is to rush ahead and get things done, lots of things, and then even more things. We’re told or feel that we must produce ever more in ever less time for ever less money. Is it any wonder that we feel anxious and short of time? Time management gurus can describe all manner of useful and productive ways in which to manage our time in order to get ever more done. However if our days were 30 hours long would we feel we had enough time now that we had an extra 6 hours? Or would we simply fill all those hours up to capacity so that we “ran out of time” again? Oh yes, I reckon we would.

So what is the solution to having enough time? Make different choices, I suggest. Choose very carefully exactly where to direct your energy and practice being fully present in everything that you do.

When you are totally absorbed by the task of the moment then time becomes to some degree an irrelevance it simply is time. You come to experience the “Now” where everything simply is and everything is deeply peaceful. The art is balancing being in a blissful state of presence with also living a full and productive life. After all it is much easier to get into this “Now” state when you are free of the pressures of daily life but surely it will be when ever more of us are fully in the Now during our jobs and in all our interactions with others that life and society will seem to slow down. We’ll stop rushing because we will know that yes, we do have enough time because when centred in the Now we have all the time in the Universe and we simply know it Now

How? Practice, simply align your intention to be present, keep tracking yourself and choose your focus. I am getting ever better at this and yet there are also times when I slip back into old rush filled habits that remind me just how dissatisfying that way of living is and was.

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