time awareness
Oh time, what a fascinating construct. It allows us to have schedules, make dates with friends, and just generally function as a society. It gives us all an understood baseline. But it’s simply that, a construct. We often fall prey to rules we’ve made around time, and let it govern us. Time is incredibly useful, but like anything useful, there is a break point at which it hinders us. Too much of a good thing. Consider for a moment, the societal pressure to fill every minute of your schedule vs the schedule that brings you the most peace, ease, joy, and comfort. Do they look the same?
I launched the May Monthly Intentionalism Challenge (on Instagram) around this quote:
“How you spend your days is, of course, how you spend your life.” - Annie Dillard.
What does life look like for you, based on your current reality? Never-ending to-do lists? Late nights at the office (or well, in bed on your laptop, right now)? Always running on empty? Ordering takeout as you finish up just one more email? These are more the norm, unfortunately.
We tend to think of life as this end goal that we’re working towards. We are a retirement culture, where the time to enjoy life is later, after putting in your time. We are told that we are wasting life, when we’re not scheduled for something every minute of the day. And when we’re exhausted and fed up, we’re told over and over that overcrowded schedules are how you get ahead, how you put in your time. We’re told that the present moment is for focus and fun belongs in the future. And even when people of retirement age look back and say, don’t wait to enjoy life, we’re already so far in the ruts heading that direction it seems impossible to course correct. But it’s not impossible. Whether you’re just joining adult life or of retirement age, it’s not too late to choose ease and enjoyment moment to moment, and build your life with intention.
Retirement culture blatantly disregards the fact that we have only the present moment. In each moment we have the opportunity to make decisions, whether we feel like that’s true or not. While we can’t change the past, we can decide at any moment to make different decisions. What is in the past does not need to dictate the future. Inform, sure, dictate, no. It’s incredibly important to save and plan for retirement, it’s just also important not to wait to enjoy life until then. In the meantime, why not fill as many present moments with ease, joy, engagement, and fulfillment? That way, when we reach retirement age, we’ll be looking back at a full life that we appreciated while it unfolded, rather than eagerly awaiting some kind of new beginning.
It’s as simple as being aware. Knowing where your time is going, and in those moments course correcting if tunnel vision has started. The point here isn’t to have only joyful, happy moments in your life. That’s unrealistic. Life is full of ebbs and flows, but if you can put your intention toward including and focusing on the flows rather than the ebbs, you’re bound to have a life dominated by ease, joy, and enjoyment. Although circumstances from the past may limit your choices at first, the more you choose joy, the more open your options become. As you choose joy, you’re reclaiming your time and what it means to have a meaningful life. When you choose joy, you are rejecting retirement culture and inviting fun into your life. When you choose joy, you’re peeling back the blinders (tunnel vision) of societal pressures and redefining what you want your time to look like. Because, as it goes, how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.