The post is about stressing over how selective I can be with using my time. It’s one of those self-absorbed posts littered on some parts of the internet once posted, left to collect dust and forgotten. To the future self that revisits this blog, adapt your thinking to what you have learned and look back onto the past as a haunting reminder. I try to limit my tags so as not to get this post too visible. The wall of text getting votes may decrease the morale of creators that aesthetically improve their posts.
This post is around 2.5k words, fair warning for those that don't like to waste their time on self-absorbed posts.
The irrational guilt I have developed comes in the form of sleeping. The hours spent resting could’ve been used to do something productive but my body wants to be a bitch be lazy. Now I get the previous line is irrational but that’s what it is, an irrational thought that I am aware being absurd. The amount of work and results put in within 24 hours can’t meet the expectation of outcome I want to accomplish within a day and I highly doubt anyone that has never been a workaholic could relate to this pet peeve. It’s not a big problem that gets me frustrated, it’s more like a nagging feeling at the back of my head after waking up and checking my phone’s clock daily.
Chronophobia
The irrational fear of running out of time. An inordinate obsession with time running out. I don't have it but if there is a phobia I'm likely going to acquire it's this. Every day I contemplate about death and everything else that may follow after. Every motion should have a purpose to do something productive or meaningful otherwise I may spend the seconds left of my last breath regretting how I should have lived. I can’t recall when these things started but the closest approximate must have been during my med school years when I was working 5 jobs while studying.
It was a period of Renaissance on my financial literacy. Realizing I knew nothing about how the world works and still being pampered by school. Yes, I do have multiple jobs but I could have that security to just say fuck it and quit them all. Adulting is hard, you can’t just quit when it hurts because responsibilities. I wanted to simulate the experience and build some character in me. The problem with this pursuit is that nobody will likely get you when you’re on the road. Why cause undue stress when I could get job security just by being a Physician later on. These were some comments given from classmates that are already 3rd generation of wealth, upper middle class and people who convinced themselves that the profession is lucrative enough.
Being a stubborn mule as I am, I just kept going until I had to drop 2 to 3 jobs when I saw my grades taking a dip. Not that the dips were bad, I was still passing my exams, just a noticeable drop from being an above average to average. But the lessons were already there, like how to invest in stocks, real estate, and marketable skills I can do without relying on one profession.
That One Friend Who Took the Leap
In a time when the entire class was minding their own business studying medicine, the boys at the back just chatted business. There’s this one guy who applied the lessons learned and quit med school right after the semester. Realizing how much he was winning at stock trading, he took a leap and risked it. Prior to him leaving him, he was talking to me about concepts I am just now learning about because back then I couldn’t appreciate the pace he was learning on his own. Doing several things at once, I missed a lot of cues when I should’ve been picking up on his trail. So now the financial stuff that I’m revisiting is just a walk into memory lane.
We’re still friends, as far as I know. But I’d be lucky if he manages to give me a response even after waiting for 48 hours on his social media. I’m not the only one who wants his time in catching up. Last I heard, some of my mutual friends even have difficulty getting in touch with him.
If I was heavily reliant on emotional thinking, I would have seen the lack of responses and being unavailable as a dick move. But recalling the lessons I learned about how time was money, he probably just filters out low value conversations and protects his time. I’m indifferent towards that, I do it too. So the interaction I may start with him is about a business proposal, maybe. Anyway, the guy is another league of his own up there. Let’s just say if I got him onboarded on Hive and he got interested in this place, it’s not unlikely that he’ll lead the entire community in no time.
The Lowkey Regional Manager
I don’t recall the specific job title but it’s something along those lines. To the guy that kept in tabs with me even if there was no remote reason to be interested. I met him at some religious group years back, yes I attended religious activities for kicks and giggles. I wasn’t really interested in meeting people but the guy took the first move tried to be friends with me.
I didn’t understand his position. I could see some parts of his attitude in me but the marked difference is the amount of patience and peace of mind. It’s like I was talking to my ideal future self which was concerning as our talks reflected what I was lacking in terms of character. One key lesson he gave to me indirectly was the importance of minding people’s time. It’s not the stereotypical come on time, don’t be late, and etc.
It was along the lines of I respect my time and so should I make effort to respect other people’s time if they can’t respect theirs. Here I was taking for granted the personal chats I had with the guy about life lessons and perspectives in a student mentor relationship. I picked up the cues bit by bit until I realized the weight of the time spent with those talks. The non-verbal cues when he would look at his watch, mention other meetings, and the nature of his job. The guy was busy and held a higher rank position in the company (famous international brand). I’d say he was the type that people would be required to set an appointment first but there it was, due to some religious teachings and mentoring on self-improvement he was giving me a share of that precious time.
The lesson sank heavier than how I’d described it into writing. Even putting it into words feels lacking in terms of the impact it gave me but both these situations led me to the practices I do with my time.
Now
I respect my time and so should I respect people’s time if they themselves can’t respect theirs. Every action spent on a waking moment should have a purpose and then assume that there is a chance I may never wake up to continue whatever I started today so do things dutifully.
People who make me listen to their ravings, talking about useless things that serve no purpose, talks that aren’t meaningful on topics that don’t really matter have no place in my schedule. These activities/people don’t respect their time and get preoccupied with wasting a free valuable resource and they want to drag others along with their vice.
I understand that sounding too concerned with my time makes it sound like it’s so fucking special – it is. And so are yours, to the reader that still manages to read this post. Your time is limited, you can drop dead tomorrow, the people around you can also be gone when you least expect it, so spend your time wisely on things that give you the most meaning.
Have you ever had a loved one die in front of you at a hospital bed? Those last minutes they spent talking to you on their dying breathe were probably one of the most meaningful moments they spent in their entire lives because they know their time is about to come to an end. When they were at their best state of health, the hours’ worth of conversation can hold as much more meaningful weight as those few minutes spent. Time is relative, it’s free, valuable and the often wasted.
If you chose a route were you get too picky with your time, expect that some people who are used to not spending their time wisely will not get it. But this is a journey you just got to roll with on your own. You’ll figure out which people in your circle give you more value for your time based on how selective you are at spending it. You may have to drop useless conversation time on social media if you pursue this route but that’s part of the process.
This isn’t to say you should stop spending time even if it’s just casual talks, just pick the ones where you can at the very least, check on people and how’s they’re doing if they matter. I don’t have several people sending me personal messages unrelated to work. I’ve already filtered those out and the only ones that do send me unrelated to work messages are from people that do matter.
Friend: “Do you still have any friends except for me? Even at work? I’m worried, maybe you’re getting bullied?
She said this after I told her I’m not seeing another friend within the same institution even though we’re just close but due to how hectic work can be, stopping by for a chat seems unfeasible. But really, I know my fault here, I just didn’t stop by to check because I know they’re fine and casual small talk wasn’t something I’m good at. They’re both good friends, I’m just really low maintenance on the social side.
Me: No, but thank you for your concern. I’m just picky with my time and focusing on my hobbies than mingle with people in the office talking about idle chatter, gossip and things that don’t really matter unless it’s work related. Granted gossip is the social currency that some people like to pay attention to, I’m not into that economy so I’m excluded from activity.
Needless to say, it just made me reevaluate on what I’ve been doing with my time if someone close to me mentioned their observation, I listen. So a little meditation led me to the conclusion that fuck it, I’m right.
As you age, the amount of people within your circle that you can spend time with diminishes and majority of the relationships you carried don’t really bring the most value to you. The most time you spend your life with is your spouse/partner which will eventually come to an end one day and the all you’re left with is yourself and the free time to evaluate whether you did something meaningful with your time. A passage from a mystery book I once read that just stuck with me, “when you’re young, you make a lot of friends thinking they can save you. But when you get older, you figure out only you can save you.” And true enough, everyone else in your circle will be minding their own business, busy and you’re still connected but alone.
I make it a point that whatever I’m doing or who I’m spending time with is already something that matters to me. Now I’m not someone special, it'd be great if I can't die so that I wouldn't be conscious about time so much. I know this kind of thinking isn’t going to sit well with most people especially who are used to wasting their precious resource over things that don’t yield them as much value as they put into their activity. But when someone I know that is busy gives me their time, that’s a precious resource I’ll never take for granted.
Learning from my past relationships, if I know you’re someone who checks on your phone within the hour but can’t seem to find the time to give a timely reply, that’s a red flag. If I’m meeting with some friends trying to catch up and they pay more attention to their phone than what’s in the moment, wouldn’t it have been better to just not waste our time talking in person and just settle for instant messaging? I’m likely never going to bother again, it’s not you, it’s me.
This is my rebellion against what the common norm is with social media. You want authenticity, sincerity, and all the nice things that genuine human interaction can provide yet not observing the work that requires to actually make that happen. But of course, there would always be exceptions as I don’t plan on changing the way people conduct themselves. If being connected online is what matters more in the moment, who am I tell anyone how to use their time if that’s how they want to use it. But damn, you are one interesting person in my eyes if you can hold a conversation for a long period without getting a dose of that blue light.
Talk to me about your ideas, emojis are nice but I want to see you laugh for real and not type in lol's that you never mean. Talk about stuff that interests you, not type it. Stop midway to pause and listen, not charge your battery. I want to see the character in person and not the name with an avatar representing a person. I want it real and bloody hell I know I come off too demanding for that.
You can remember the chats, revisit the messages, and commit them to memory but it's a different league when you can experience the talk and commit the scene to memory.
There are plenty of people out there that would waste your time and don't worry, at some point you unconsciously wasted theirs too but the most gross mistake here is failing to see the error and perpetuating the norm. We have been used something that isn't healthy in our social relationships that it's already an oddity to do something as healthy as having a healthy conversation without a screen to hide from.
I'm not trying to throw off the people people that do check out their phone frequently when they're out, this is an acquired habit and I learned it too. I had to unlearn it to change for what I think is the better for myself and for the people I want to spend time with. In the end, these are just my values on the table. Despite me being critical about it, these are habits done by people and not the people themselves.
Going back to a time where I had been with people who would sit down and exchange ideas without peering into their gadgets, that experience was my benchmark on why I value those interactions over what I frequently have right now. Just co-workers, former classmates, or acquaintances on a night out eating and pulling out their phones with mind not in the company but somewhere out there on social media space.
Sometimes it's difficult to communicate something as important as "I'm here because you're worth my time." directly but this was the lesson that took a while to understand until I learned the value of time.
I've already accepted a life where I'm going to die in the end but what I can't accept is having to go through the process without living it to the fullest. You and everyone else will eventually have their time come to an end. As morbid as it may seem, this is the reason why I want to appreciate people with the limited time I have to live for.
I’m giving 5 Hive away to the first commenter to guess how many times I said “time” on this post. You can change an answer by adding another comment on top of your first guess instead of editing your guess. There’s a timestamp on the blockchain to be fair. Please note that I specifically said “time” not sometime, sometimes, times or everytime, just the plain word “time”.
If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.