While I am an avid fan of the television series “Dr Who”, I know that time does not exist – only clocks exist. Time is a linear progression of many moments linked together to give the appearance of a homogeneous whole – our lives.
We have simply reached a tacit global consensus that we will alow our lives to be dominated by an artificial construct. We have confused this shared construct with something that is real and tangible and as a consequence have become its slave. We are no longer Lords of Time. We have become its prisoners.
Don’t get me wrong: I know that time is a useful way of organising our lives. The point I am trying to bring home is that we have allowed time to become our master and, as a result we spend our lives being dominated by it rather than our using it as a tool to help us better manage our lives. We have become a race of “human doings” rather than “human beings”. We are constantly busy doing stuff to the beat of the clock. This has removed much spontaneity and freedom just to “BE” from our daily lives. We have become caught in the 9 to 5 bind which affords us little freedom and which often expands to envelop us in even long hours at work and less time at play. The joy of living is slowly being sucked out of us as we work harder and longer to satisfy the never ending demands of the clock and those who derive the most benefit from its manipulation.
The negative consequences of being “slaves to time” are many and on the increase. Our spiritual, mental and physical health depends upon us being able to take back time for ourselves to just “BE” ourselves not what others expect us to be. When we are starved of time those things to disappear from our lives first are often those which are most important to our wellbeing – such as exploring and experiencing our own unique expression of spirituality, purpose, passion, joy and love. We also and equally importantly begin to neglect our physical needs – exercise, diet and rest and our mental need to take time out to reflect and refresh ourselves.
We are not machines, yet we have somehow become brainwashed to think that we are… and in an age dominated by technological advancements, it is easy to see why. While technology has brought us new discoveries and understandings about the world we live in, it has also brought us to the brink of collapse collectively and individually. We cannot continue down the path we are currently going if we want to survive. Our planet and our lives cannot sustain the pressures much longer. There will be an inevitable collapse of the way we have lived our lives for so long, and that collapse has already begun.
We experience this firsthand at the personal level when our own families or those we know are broken apart by the premature deaths of our loved ones. One of the biggest causes of premature deaths in the world today is CANCER – a disease that eats away at us until we can no longer sustain physical life. There appears to be no one direct cause for this invidious disease. Yet I believe that there is a direct correlation between the stress we experience in our lives and the physical health of our bodies. This stress is attributable much to the way we live our lives running on empty.
We neglect to meet our own needs as we rush around like “headless chickens” trying to meet the needs of others convincing ourselves in the process that we must do this to ensure our survival. There is a certain irony in this perspective! While we may appear to be living the good life through our incessant work or entrepreneurial activities the real truth is that we are failing to enjoy what life has to offer and we are killing ourselves in the process. It just takes longer!
Its time to get off the “speedway of life” and to take time out in the pits more regularly. Its time to take time out of the equation altogether to chill out, to find joy and to experience love again. Its time to be the Lords and Masters in our own lives again.