I’ve just celebrated midsummer’s eve on a lovely retreat in Cornwall. It’s the second time I have taken a break and hidden away in a small enclave near some of Britain’s loveliest beaches. It’s also one of the many ways I carve out time to take stock and reflect. One of the things that marking time does is reveal what has and hasn’t happened during the interval.
Looking back, a number of significant events I thought would be complete by now are not – again (sound familiar, anyone?). Time doesn’t always equate to progress. So here I am, another year older, and not necessarily wiser. Time is ticking. And this theme keeps showing up with my clients too, both individual and organisational: “Where did all the time go?” or “There is not enough time…”
Sometimes said in resignation or frustration, other times as a battle cry – for we “do not go gently into that good night.” A kind of curse that we rail against, it’s almost as if it were part of our programming to worry about “running out of time.” And perhaps it is. For it can be on any number of scales: From us tackling the climate crisis, through to getting a project completed, right up to meeting with friends, or even getting enough sleep. It is an outward expression of an existential challenge: We will run out of time – We will die, things will be undone, not yet explored, incomplete… There will never be enough time. And how much energy do we spend fighting against something that is bigger than us?
But perhaps that is a feature rather than a bug?
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Time, the finite kind, is the crucible of character – it’s what we choose to do with the time allotted to us that matters.
If we had all the time in the world, our choices would be less important, less interesting. In essence, we would be without consequence, just the need to do something else in the “meantime.” We would not have to live with the fruits of our decisions, good or bad. We would be without the need for discernment. And this would make us bored – and probably boring. It would dull our personality, our neurosis and our complications. We wouldn’t be caught with the struggle, nor find a way to live with imperfection – our human state: Running out of time gives us a chance to learn the art of Wabi-Sabi: “things are flawed, things change, and things are never finished fully…”
Of course, I’d love to have more time – to see my son grow, to get more “s**t done.” But as it is, I have to make choices, every day, about what to do with my ever-depleting bank account of time. There is a beauty in living with what is, rather than what we wish could be.
Some may see this as curse, an unknown sentence, with the grim reaper forever looming. Yet it would be naïve to identify only with the loss that running out of time inevitably brings. There is an essential part of each of us that is forced to step-up, every single second. A gift.
And acting as if this isn’t true is arguably a deeper tragedy: The kind that allows us to fritter away our longing and procrastinate our days away. And what is good about this limitation?
For me, it stirs the quest to know “Who am I?” “What am I here for?” This doesn’t need to be some grand plan or exciting answer. Rather it asks us to confront and accept our frailty. And in doing so, invites us to be compassionate: to ourselves as well as to others.
And from that place, we can become more human, more loving, more in touch with life – ours and other peoples. It makes us the sort of person others may want to spend time with…
What may appear as chains is actually an integral part of who we are. For without it, we would not be able to relish the moment, or think through a dilemma, be forced to look for a creative way through, or even accept our mortality. That is the gift of “not enough time” – it provides pressure. Like a kiln, it turns each of us into an imperfect work of art. It is an empowering problem to have.
Now if you told this to my 21-year-old self (who thought he had all the time in the world 🤦♂️), he would have run a mile. Freedom is the catch cry of youth – “my entire life I was desperate to be free from myself.” Limitations often felt to me like chains – and time is the most inescapable of them all. (I am afraid even Bryan Johnson won’t escape it.)
Yet we get something in return when we turn to face into time and its unending march: A gravitas and ability to find dignity in the truth of limitation. From that place, we can find equanimity – and if we truly know it, we can share that with others. And that is a real gift.
And then some meetings do reach their natural end – actions are defined and people are ready to go. Sometimes we are ready to go to bed – and sometimes we have had enough sleep and are raring to face the day! Sometimes there is enough time.
What is the difference?
Have you ever spent time in the presence of someone who is at peace? One sign of an elder is their acceptance of fate, which includes knowing that they do not have enough time. Elders no longer rail against an unsympathetic god like Chronos, devouring his babies and carrying a scythe. Rather they sit with a deep well of compassion – ironically, they seem to have all the time in the world…
And the Greeks knew Chronos wasn’t the only way to look at time. Contrast him with Aion, the god of cyclical and eternal time. The boundless, time stretching to eternity. Time will continue without us, whether we like it or not. Just as the earth circles the sun, the universe expands, the midsummer marks the shortening of the days… All until the next cycle.
Speaking to a colleague the other day about how much these rhythms of life, these cyclical patterns may in fact be a support for us as we face each challenge, or day, or year. And when we trust that there will be another wave, we can feel less desperate – and from that place, we can listen more, and simply BE.
Time is also a subjective experience: Talking with friends into the early hours, a conversation on a train that makes “the time fly by,” a creative outflow that just goes and goes until we forget to eat.
We are both contained by time, as well as free within it.
How do we hold that paradox?
And is it about time at all? Or is it something else?
Usually, we don’t have enough time because we are focusing on the future – our sense of linear time has taken us away from the present moment and we become preoccupied with some not yet arrived future: Our presentation going badly; the impending doom of uncurbed consumption; the failure of a project; the success of a project… our unavoidable death. “What are we going to do?!!” The panic these imagined futures evokes in us tends to makes things worse, “There is never enough time…” And the vicious spiral continues.
So. Pause. Start with the truth first: There is absolutely nothing we can do about time.
And accept it.
This is not meant as pessimism. Rather, it is an exciting call to embrace the truth of the limited resources we have. And what better place to practice living in a finite world than with the 1440 minutes* we are handed each full day. They expire, then we get them again, and again, until we don’t. The truth is, time is always running out, just like fossil fuels. And like them, we don’t exactly know when our time will come. And yet, we can’t control time, only what we choose to focus on.
Once we do that and become comfortable living within that constraint, to know our mortality, we can learn to live with it. To bear it, not as a cross, but as a truth. And our ability to sit with the truth is what makes us grow as a person.
So next time you are at a meeting and you are about to “run out of time,” notice what has been good, and try and find ways to repeat the bitter-sweet statement – “I really liked the time I spent with you.”
In conclusion, accept that time is going to run out. Know that it will all end too quickly. And do the best we can with the moments that are allotted to us. As an experiment, when you notice time is running out, try these little reframes:
| Statement | Reframe |
| I haven’t got enough time | I honour the important things in my life |
| I don’t want this to end | Thank you for giving me this moment |
| Its taking too long | It will change at some point |
On a final note, my Aboriginal mentor introduced me to a phrase that gives a nod to this unavoidable passing of time between friends:
Gunata
This roughly translates to “Good-bye forever: For when next we meet, if at all, you will be a different person, and so will I, and we can look forward to knowing each other again.”
Thanks for taking the time to read. 😉
*Actually, we get 1436 per day – which is why, after 4 years, we add an extra day into our calendar on a “leap year” – a kind of system work around.