My Fickle Relationship with Time

Time. It's a four-letter word. Some see it as a nasty word. Others see it as a word full of promise and possibilities. We all have a relationship with time, a relationship that is as individual and varied as each person. No other person can understand your relationship with time.

Myself... well, I've had a tumultuous relationship with time. There are periods where time and I get along quite fine. We work in harmony and I feel as if time is on my side. We are pulling in the same direction and things are getting done at an amazing rate. There are, however, other periods where time and I seem to work at cross-purposes. I sit and procrastinate. I fritter away long periods of time doing absolutely nothing of value. Time gets bored with me and flies away and I am left at the end of the day with nothing to show for my activity.

Case in point, I have been sitting here for about an hour (at my favourite Starbucks), waiting for inspiration to strike me. I have read the news, scanned my Feedly articles, researched a variety of odd topics and been left bereft of any topic.

I feel out of sorts. I know that this past week was not a productive one, at least in the field of writing. I did get a few other things done in other fields but... the writing is where I get stuck. When I get stuck with writing... other areas of my life grind to a halt as well. My to-do list, postponed from one day to the next gets longer and longer. I try to tackle the small things, but even those seem to take an inordinate amount of time. Time and I are working in different directions. I don't trust time. I am fearful of what will transpire if I give myself up to the writing. As a result, time turns up its nose at me, frustrated with my lack of purpose. It falls through my fingers, pooling on the floor and seeping into the cracks, never to be regained.

Time is a funny thing. It's not like money or material goods. We can't save it and hoard it for a future when it will be in short supply. We are given our daily dose of time, so much and no more. And yet time is a relative thing. From one day to the next, time can pass with dazzling speed or meander at a sedate pace. It is all in my perspective. Time doesn't really change... it is my perception of time that alters. I control time. Whether I choose to or not. My attitude, my mood, my feelings - all contribute to my sense of time.

If I believe a task will be onerous, I postpone it. I procrastinate. I put it off from one day to the next, from one week to the next. But while a task may be off my immediate to-do list, it is not off my mental radar. I know it is there, waiting for me in the future, ready to pounce. It saps my energy. The days and weeks pass and I devote hours and days to worrying about the task.

The ridiculous thing is that when I actually buckle down and tackle the task, I find it might take 5 or 10 minutes to complete. But how many untold minutes have I worried about the task? How much energy has been sapped from my psyche by this uncompleted task?

For months... since August actually, I have wanted to connect with the writer of a German book. I have postponed that task innumerable times, always with a variety of excuses. I didn't have her email address. My German was too sketchy to write. I didn't know what to say. A few days ago, I sat down, typed in her name and the title of the book. I found the publisher's website (which I had done months ago as well). I found the Contact Us page and wrote a two-line email to the publisher asking that they pass my email along to the author. I gave a one line synopsis of my interest in her book. Hit Send. Done. Total task time - 3 minutes. Total pysche time - months. ***head thumps down on desk***

I know this. I know this is how I operate. I know that incomplete tasks sap my energy. I know that unanswered emails drain my attention. Yet, I continue to sit and ignore them. It's too hard. I don't know what to say. It will be too complicated. It will take too long. And so I check the online news... or do some research... or tidy the house. Why??

There have been studies done on the benefits of delayed gratification. Sit a child down in front of a marshmallow. Tell the child that if they can wait 5 minutes before eating the marshmallow, they will get a second marshmallow. Watch what child does. Some children are great at delayed gratification. They wait for 5 minutes and happily walk away with two marshmallows. These same children go on to succeed in various areas of life. Other children can't wait. They figure that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So they eat the first marshmallow. These children tend to struggle later in life. I am great at delayed gratification. But I wonder... would the same work for delayed "struggle".

I think that a task is going to be a struggle, so rather than tackle it, I postpone the struggle. I think that maybe it will get better with time (not true). I think that I will be better prepared in a day, a week, a month (not true). I think that I can't handle the struggle right now, so it would be better to handle it later. It's the reverse of the gratification scenario. I think it will be better in the future, but it really isn't. And in the meantime... I worry about the task, I mentally review the task, I postpone the task. See? I control time.