Escaping the Timelord

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an article talking about time travel, daleks and cybermen. This is actually about the ‘other’ timelord, the one we’re conditioned almost from birth, not to truly see but to obey without question.

I am of course talking about the actual time, for example its currently ten past ten at night and I’m writing this article, granted to my own self-imposed deadline, but it serves as a useful example to illustrate the point I’m trying to make. Many of the things in our lives are governed unwaveringly by the time. We get up at a specific time, we get ready, maybe get the kids to school for a specific time, get to work at a specific time, take our breaks at the same times every day, finish work at the same time, pick up the kids at the same time etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

You get the point: we are literally ruled by the time nearly every moment of every day of our lives. But why?

Think about it for a second time doesn’t actually exist, it’s a fully human made abstract concept. Out in Africa roaming the plains you don’t see a Lion pull out a Rolex and think “Hmmm 12:54, time for me to go and kill that Gazelle…”, ok that would be pretty funny to witness, but it doesn’t happen since lions cares nothing for our concept of time, it basically just decides; I’m hungry, off to catch food.

We are the only species on the planet that offer up our whole lives to the altar of time. We’re always worried about running out of time, which is hysterical because we all have exactly the right amount of “time” that we need. The universe doesn’t care what time we make it to that business lunch or to the parent/teacher session, the people involved certainly will because they are governed by the timelord as well, but the universe doesn’t care, your heart and soul don’t care either, its only your logical brain that has been conditioned to slot everything into time slots that worries about it, ironically all the time.

In business, here is what time is usually for: it’s there to allow corporations to monitor and track your activities to some imagined perfect productivity world. Some bean counter somewhere has decided that a given task is going to take (x) minutes and they want to track you against those targets, this is to try and ascertain a productivity level and see if you are giving your employer the right number of hours work.

However, sometimes time is not a valid metric to judge the productivity of a living breathing entity like a human being, we each have our own ways of doing things some better, some worse. What’s more important is that we achieve what we set out to do. This is not to say don’t stick to a deadline, it shows commitment and honourability – but choose it consciously, don’t just go with the rest of the world on how and when you should be doing things Take some time for yourself to breathe too.

Stop listening to the timelord exclusively and instead listen to your true self, it’ll tell you when you’ve done all the tasks you wanted to get done in that particular day or instance.

At the end of the day you were never meant to go through life punching a timecard, after all there shouldn’t be timing your progress, you should be out there living…