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" I have no time! I am pathologically busy. It's
beyond anything I have ever imagined. I can't give anything
the attention it needs. I can't do anything well. I wake up
in the middle of the night on the verge of a
breakdown."
As I read these words, spoken by a successful doctor to
the philosopher Jacob Needleman, who records them in his
book, Time and Soul (Doubleday), I am thinking, "It's
the same with me! In the next paragraph, I'm astonished to
see that Needleman writes, "Yes, it's the same with
me!" Is he reading my mind? No, he's providing me proof
of something that I've been suspecting for while: there's a
growing time squeeze that's becoming an epidemic. I know now
that it's not just my imagination. What's going on?
Increasing numbers of victims are helplessly caught in a
hell of torturous busyness, an unyielding activity wheel of
things to do, work, social obligations, chores, to name but
a few of the time bandits. What is the source of this crime
against sanity? Is it that the "event density" of
the modern world is increasing to an inhumane level? There's
just too much happening! I know, for example, that my
computer, which is supposed to be a time savings device,
often harasses me with tedious housekeeping chores. Updating
the computer system costs me a lot of time, so I guiltily
plod along two upgrades behind the times. Maybe it's
workaholism. I know that when I sit down to rest by the bank
of the creek, it's not long before I'm feeling that there's
stuff I should be doing. It's hard to sit still for very
long, even in beautiful surroundings. If I don't practice
being still on a regular basis, I can foresee the day when
too deep a relaxation will invoke a panic attack.
Perhaps the problem is part of an overall conspiracy
involving the apocalypse, speeding up the world to choke off
our supply of time. I get worked up thinking about it.
Needleman calls it "the time famine" and in doing
so relates it to a malaise of Biblical proportions.
He says that time management skills won't help, because
the better we get at juggling time, the more we'll juggle
into time. How many balls do you have up in the air now?
He provides no practical tips for how to squeeze more
events into the day, or to find quality time with your loved
ones. He is not so much concerned that we learn to find more
time, or better time, but to achieve a different quality of
life through a different relationship with time.
He doesn't advocate the advice, still good I believe, to
take time to smell the roses. That pleasant aroma can
transport us outside of time for the moment, but doesn't
change our relationship with life. He argues that it won't
do any good to hang out in the "here and now,"
either, although I might argue that one with him. It's
actually a moot point anyway, because most of us can't hide
in this timeless moment except for an instant, then we are
surrounded by our time bandits once again.
His suggestion is more radical. You have to surrender to
the time bandits' hold on you, he says, and admit your
mortality. Let go of much that you wish to accomplish. Do
more with less.
Actually, he wants us to live in truth. Truth is eternal,
outside of time. We are in a period of history that is full
of lies, and it is these lies which create the time famine.
We are far too focused on the material world which runs by
the clock, and not enough focused on the soul, which is
outside of time. That we are living in lies, he points out,
is why we can't see the future. In truth, the future is the
result of all our choices; it is the final truth. "What
is the point of managing our days more efficiently if we do
not know what our days are for?"
To be doing what we are meant to be doing at the moment
puts us into a state of "flow." Whereas we cannot
really manage the flow of time, we can align with our soul
and enter the flow of time. When moving with the flow, we
magically disengage from the pressure of time. We make touch
with the soul. The wise man, says Aristotle is never in a
hurry. What the wise person knows that the hurried person
doesn't is that in patience you posses your soul. The soul's
answer to the problem of time is timeless being.
I can recall learning this lesson for the first time in
junior high school, in our craft shop. I had made a spice
rack and was sanding it, and then to varnish it. I was in a
hurry to finish it, and so I did finish it in a hurry. Then
I compared the results I obtained with another student who seemed
willing to sand at the wood's pace and to varnish at the
speed of molasses. His spice rack has a glassy sheen that
outshined the rough surface on my rack. That lesson would be
repeated over and again through the years. If a job was
worth doing, it was worth doing well. The soul of
craftsmanship knows the secret of moving at the speed of the
material, letting the creative forces within the material
help guide the process.
Needleman points out that within us, in the background of
awareness, there is the silent witness, the true "I
am." It is unchanged by time and has that very patience
that is the essence of soul awareness. If the "time
famine" makes you hungry for something more, he
suggests you renew your acquaintance with that "I
am." One day you will do so for all of eternity.
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