TIME FLIES 

Sample blog

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“Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator.”

Robert Orben

 

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Time is perhaps the most consistent aspect of our lives. Our planet moves around the sun at a consistent pace, while Earth rotates on its axis at over 1,000 miles per hour to make one complete rotation each 24 hours. Humans measure these movements in seconds, minutes and hours, day in and day out.

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If time is so consistent, then why do we think “time moves quickly when we’re having fun?” Why do we feel that it moves at a snail’s pace at other times? A common theme in these thoughts about the Daze of our Lives is that maybe we are the thing that varies, not time. It’s consistent. The thing that isn’t consistent is the way we use our time. When we are actively engaged in something—reading, surfing the internet, working on a project—, we lose track of time. We think time is flying because we’re doing something we like. Alternately, when we’re unoccupied, perhaps bored, we think time is moving slowly.

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C. Northcote Parkinson, a British naval historian and author, observed "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." His insight became known as Parkinson’s Law, and he published a book by the same name in 1957. While many people disagree with his theory, there is some truth in it. What do you do when you don’t have or want to do something? You fill your time. It’s human nature to want to do something, achieve a goal. 

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We all use all the time we have available, whether it is productive or not. It’s how we use all this time that is the issue. Do we do things that we want and are productive, or do we remain unoccupied and wonder why we didn’t accomplish what we desired?

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Robert Orben’s quote above acknowledges time flies and suggests that if we are doing to things we should or like to achieve, we have to be the navigator. We have to make the decisions that lean us one way or another. It’s frightening, but true, that we are the one who make these decisions.

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I know a lot of retired people. Many of them were very productive in their earlier years. Now that they have “all the time in the world” on their hands. Many of them say they wonder how they got everything done when they were working. They are busy now because they have cultivated hobbies, service projects, and relationships that seemingly “fill” their time. Those who are ill or haven’t cultivated other interests often say they are bored or have nothing to do. Their lives are often a daze.

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Most of the time the choice is ours. Time is infinite, but we are not. Do we let time fly by or do we use the time we have to use our talents?

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THOUGHT AND ACTION

1. Reflect on your life over a typical week.

   • What did you do?

   • Was it what you wanted?

   • What did you accomplish?

   • How do you feel about your use of the time you had?

2. Pick one thing you would like to accomplish within the next week. Even if you can do only one aspect of it, make it a priority to do it. At the end of the week, create a list of what you were able to accomplish and what is still left to be done. 

 

SOURCES​​

• Parkinson, Cyril Northcote. Parkinson's Law: Or, The Pursuit of Progress. Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

• Hourglass image - Freepik

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