The Currency Of Time
If there is ever a phrase that irks me it’s “I’m going to spend time with/doing <blah>”
‘Spend’ time? Since when has time been equivalent of a currency? Not only has consumerism have us obsessed with wanting more stuff it also has warped our concept of time – as if it were a commodity we knew we were going to run out of.
And now there seems to be some underlying necessity to cram our lives as a sequence of events, scheduled to maximise our return on investment – cashing in time in calculated increments in the hope to make us feel ‘balanced’.
My theory on being ‘balanced’ – it’s pedestrian. All you really end up doing is juggling one part of your life with another. Hardly anything extraordinary comes out of a juggling act. Unless you are juggling flaming chainsaws with puppies.
So don’t be afraid to take your work/family/friends/leisure ‘balance’ and change it up a bit – go with the flow; do what comes naturally; focus on something extraordinary or turn something ordinary into something extraordinary. And don’t worry about any downtime – daydreaming is good for you. After all there is no hurry.
Tags: goals, human nature, lifestyle, time
February 8th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
i agree. daydreaming is awesome. in my mind, time only feels like it has to be 'spent' when you are obligated to do something like 'spend' an afternoon with aunt berryl.
but if people couldn't be convinced that time is some sort of commodity, we wouldn't be convinced to spend waaaaay more money on items which 'save us time'. i'm a cynic. i think it is about convincing us that the way things are done which are good for big corporations, are also good for us. i guess this is a really clever way we buy in to it. if we weren't worried about saving our time, why on god's green earth would i have ever bought those weight loss shakes? yikes.