VOICES: Is time on your side?

It wasn't an unusual morning. I was short-cutting my way across Scranton, following the intricate path of least resistance I've charted in order to beat the clock that inevitably indicates I'm five minutes late.

About to enter another five days of uncomfortably tight scheduling, I mentally reviewed the list of things I had to do that day to stay on top of upcoming commitments and responsibilities. Suddenly an unusually pertinent Susan Stanberg interview on National Public Radio cut through my automatic pilot and shined an ironic light on my greatest anxiety - time (or more specifically, my perceived lack of it).
Stanberg was questioning author James Gleick about his 1999 book Faster: the Acceleration of Just About Everything. Even though I was running late, I almost pulled over in order to better concentrate on this matter which often obsesses me. Gleick explained his theory that we have a thrill for speed, that we long for it like children racing down hills on sleds or their bicycles.

Really? When was the last time you heard someone say, "What a rush! I've got way more to do today than I can possibly hope to do well. I wish it could always be this hectic."

While I think many of us do appreciate occasional rushes of stress-manufactured adrenaline, no one wants to feel as rushed as we do these days. Not every day. Over and over again, like we're trapped in a Sisyphus-styled social cage.

"We know something's happening, and we're beginning to sense what it is. We're speeding up; our technology is speeding up; our arts and entertainment and the pace of invention and change - it's all speeding up, Gleick writes on the website for Faster. "And we care. If we don't understand time, we become its victims."

So... how can we fight off victimhood? Let me guess- I've got to go buy the book that I don't have time to read in order to find out.

How we use our time dictates what we'll be able to achieve before we die and what goals will simply remain good ideas. It determines what memories we will have to comfort us when the very thought of speed makes our aged joints ache. To say time is money is a gross simplification... time is our very life's blood.

Time also defines one's identity. How you choose to use your time says more about you than any self-determined label. Do you spend a good deal of time in pursuit of pleasure - well you're a fun-loving person, aren't you. Do you procrastinate? Are you efficient? Use time well enough and you're automatically considered smart. Should we take time less seriously?

I thought so once. A recovering workaholic, I've had to teach myself to "waste time." I don't wear a watch anymore - it would be much too stressful to always know for sure how much time had passed and how much time remained. I learned to deconstruct the word re-creation and finally convinced myself that all work and no play might cause Alicia to suffer from burnout, or even worse, a meltdown. But recently, after attending two funerals in two weeks, I found many of my old anxieties refreshed. I thought about all the wonderful people that I don't spend as much time with as I wished I could. What could I do differently, I wondered?

Gleick refers to the belief that we possess too little time as "a myth." Mythological or not, my time anxiety is rooted in fear - the fear that one of these days I'll fail to keep up, that I'll drop the ball and disappoint myself and others for not being able to accomplish what they and I both think I should.

There are no easy solutions to achieve the balance between work, play and love, raison d'être and responsibility, family and friends. How can we maintain an awareness of time, of how precious it is, without allowing that same consciousness to drive us crazy?

"It may help to think of time as a continuous flow, rather than a series of segmented packages," suggested Gleick. "...time is not a thing you have lost. It is not a thing you ever had. It is what you live in. You can drift in its currents, or you can swim."

Okay, but will a doggie paddle suffice?

--alicia grega-pikul, 13 February 2003