Today we're going to be looking at time as a source of stress.
Now,
The notion of time is an interesting topic.
Time is something that we are all subconsciously erasing.
The phrases,
I'm late,
I don't have enough time,
I wish I had more time.
It's so easy to say all of that,
Yet these phrases are little pockets of signals that possibly show us that we are trying to beat time or race time in some way,
Shape,
Or form.
We as a society are overwhelmed with stimulation,
With commitments,
And sometimes if we don't have the necessary systems and the management,
We can be unsure on how to prioritize and manage everything,
Which in itself causes an underlying source of stress within us.
Too much to do,
Maybe a lack of priority,
Or maybe generally too little time,
And in which cases the best decision is to ask for help and to give ourselves a little bit of space,
A bit of freedom,
To be able to save ourselves some time.
That is also very,
Very valid.
We can't do everything on our own because we are limited by this 24-hour day.
There is only a certain capacity that we can work up to without burning ourselves out,
And the capacity we can work ourselves up to is based on the intensity of our task,
But is also based on our tolerance.
Some people are able to tolerate a lot more intensity and can get more done in a shorter amount of time,
Which is also called productivity,
But others need a little bit more time to go slow,
To think,
And to really flush things out.
Either way is okay and we don't need to race this imaginary timeline that we're putting on ourselves.
Now,
Another way time stresses us out is in the really big picture,
In the long run.
We race the timeline of when to hit life milestones.
There's this societal pressure that we need to get married at a certain age,
We need to get a house by a certain age,
We need to have everything figured out by a certain age,
And the answer is your timeline is your timeline.
It's underlying in different cultures that we have to hit certain milestones by a certain time,
But the reality is that for everybody it's going to look a lot different.
Our lives after school,
When we don't have that structure,
They literally play out in so many ways.
There are so many ways our lives can take a turn,
And because of this,
Because of these little turns along the way,
Our timelines begin to show up differently.
Maybe it's aligned with societies,
And maybe it's totally not aligned with societies.
Either way is okay,
And I also get that we are trying to race this timeline because we are unsure of when the end of time will be.
We don't know when it's going to be the end,
And because we don't know when it's going to be the end,
We want to fill our lives with so much to be able to become the most fulfilled.
And I feel like you really have to ask yourself,
What do you want to make out of your life?
What do you want to spend your time doing?
What do you want to spend your time doing?
Who do you want to spend your time with?
And once you really really hone into that and do it with intention,
I feel like that's when we alleviate so much of our time-based stress.
When we live with intention,
When we are doing things because we know the reason why,
That's when we can start to alleviate the stress that comes along with not being able to live a fulfilled life.
What do you want?
A lot of us don't really know exactly what we want,
And you don't have to know exactly what you want,
But I feel like it's important to at least know the direction.
How do you want to feel?
How do you want to feel?
And then that answer can determine what you want.
Now there's also this notion of doing a lot,
Chasing time,
And not resting,
Not pulling back.
We are constantly go go go go go,
And the pulling back is actually the hard part for many people.
We as a society right now are told to rest,
And I feel like rest and recovery and burnout and overwork and overdrive has been a hot topic recently.
But on the other hand,
I also feel like not many people talk about the guilt,
The shame,
The blame that comes when we actually are giving ourselves time to rest.
When we slow down,
There's this notion,
Societal pressure,
Of I'm lazy,
I'm not doing enough,
I'm not productive.
And that alone is also causing stress.
When we're resting,
We feel stressed.
When we're not resting,
We feel stressed.
And it's not something we can get rid of immediately,
But it's something we can bring awareness to.
And it's something that eventually,
In the long run,
Hopefully our relationship with that eases and becomes a bit more compassionate.
And that we tell ourselves that we don't need to stress ourselves out,
Put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect,
To do it perfectly,
To race the timeline,
And to get everything done.
I am going to leave you with a little saying,
A little quote that I really like.
We underestimate what we can do in a year,
But we overestimate what we can do in a day.
This basically means that in our day-to-day lives,
We put so much pressure on the 24 hours,
Doing all of these things,
Filling up our schedules.
But if you put each day,
And you stack it on top of each other,
And each day becomes each week,
Weeks become months,
Months become a year.
And when you look at that whole year,
You realize that you actually did so much.
If you put effort,
A little bit of effort into each day,
They stack up,
They stack up,
They stack up.
It's almost like the compounding effect.
You put in effort into a day,
The next day,
The next day,
The next day,
The next day.
And in the end,
In the grand scheme of things,
You realize that you progressed so much,
You went so far.
It may not seem like it in that day itself,
But if you expand the perspective,
It's probably much,
Much more than you would ever imagine.
So small steps,
Daily steps,
Bit by bit,
With compassion.
I hope that gave you a little bit of a perspective to think about,
And to cultivate your own definition of how time stress looks for you.
Do you resonate more with the day-to-day battle against time,
Or do you resonate more with the overlying,
Looming,
Long-term effects of time and stress?
