Time and Stress

Ein­stein said imag­i­na­tion is more impor­tant than intel­li­gence.
Prob­a­bly because your prob­lems are your imaginations.

Stress and the lack of time go hand in hand.  When we feel we don’t have enough time, we often panic! I find that I feel stressed when I’m “run­ning out of time.”  This has led me to real­ize that most of our stress traces back to this con­sis­tent per­cep­tion that we don’t have enough time.

When we are stressed, we often focus on the amount of work we need to do that’s stress­ing us out.  But the real fact is that it’s the amount of work we have to do in such a short amount of time that’s truly stress­ing us out.
Case in point: It’s not the laun­dry itself that’s stress­ful.  It’s find­ing the time to do the laun­dry that’s stressful.

Some other examples:

• If I’m dri­ving some­where and I hit a traf­fic jam, I real­ize I get stressed out not because of the traf­fic, but because I’m going to be late to where I was going.
• When the dead­line for a bill is near, I may panic, not because of the bill, but because I don’t have enough money to pay for it yet (but prob­a­bly will by the due date).
• If I’m study­ing for a test or writ­ing a paper and real­ize there’s only a cou­ple days left and I’m not ready, I start to panic, again because of this idea that time is run­ning out.

We Are Bred To Obey The Clock

We are taught from a young age to be dri­ven by the clock.  There isn’t a room in a school that doesn’t have a clock.  We are taught to think sequen­tially and always be doing one thing after another.  Even from a young age we learn the adage that “time is money.”  As a result…

• When we waste time, we often feel annoyed or guilty with our­selves for not get­ting tasks accomplished.
• When other peo­ple waste our time we may become frus­trated and impatient.
• When we want to give more of our time to oth­ers and we can­not (like friends or fam­ily), we grow con­cerned that we are fail­ing those clos­est to us.
• Even when we have lots of time, we may get irri­tated that we’re not being pro­duc­tive enough!

Instead, see time as abun­dant, like a river that’s always com­ing and going.

When I went to a recent vaca­tion in Mex­ico, I was watch­ing the cashier slowly bag­ging my items while there was a long line of cus­tomers wait­ing and my friend whis­pered to me, “Man, these peo­ple are lazy.” And I said, “No, they’re not lazy at all actu­ally.  It’s just that they’re not trained to do every­thing in a rush like us.  They don’t care that there’s a long line.  They know how to chill.  They know how to live.”

My point is that other cul­tures actu­ally enjoy their time.  They see time as abun­dant, like a river that’s flow­ing.  Always com­ing and going.  It’s nice to think of money like that too, by the way.  Money comes and goes.  Time comes and goes.  It is what it is.  Ever notice how if you go to a restau­rant out­side of the US, the waiter won’t imme­di­ately bring the check right after you fin­ish your food?  It’s because din­ner is intended to be a plea­sur­able expe­ri­ence and the restau­rant man­ager isn’t putting pres­sure on the waiter to turn tables and increase rev­enue. Chilling-out is a long-lost for­got­ten art in the US.

Take the con­trol back; You are not a slave to the clock

• If you’re a busi­ness owner, learn to out­source!  Del­e­gate respon­si­bil­i­ties.  You don’t have to do every sin­gle lit­tle thing.  Yes, you will be pay­ing for it but what’s more impor­tant, your san­ity or your money?  (With­out health, you have noth­ing.)
• Pri­or­i­tize your work: Set­ting real­is­tic dead­lines for tasks helps pri­or­i­tize your work.  It also gives focus.  (Read Life’s to do list)
• Learn to say No: Say no to requests that are not impor­tant.  You don’t have to do every­thing and take on every project.

When was the last time you did noth­ing but lis­tened to the silence of your soul?

I’m sim­ply try­ing to make you more aware as to what is really caus­ing some of your stress.  We can­not con­trol traf­fic jams or turn back time, but we can con­trol our reac­tions.  Learn how to slow the mind and con­cen­trate on your breath­ing.  Straighten up your pos­ture, take a deep breath in and exhale slowly.  Relax your mus­cles.  Relax your jaw.  Relax your butt (you might be butt-gripping even while sit­ting).  Let the shoul­ders drop (they’re prob­a­bly always hunched up!).  Things like that. Find your moment of zen amidst the chaos.  We can­not con­tinue to make excuses for not tak­ing care of our­selves due to “not enough time” with­out com­pro­mis­ing our health. Learn to con­trol your reac­tions to these sit­u­a­tions, and step back and take a deep breath. Your body and mind will thank you each time.

–Antranik