Give a modern day child an analog clock and...
Time is a funny concept. When I say funny I mean weird and difficult to understand. This might seem strange to consider for the mind that is controlled by time, especially one in American society. My brain that is in touch with the demands of society is always arguing with my yogic mind about what time is and what it does. The arguments usually start when I am running late. My brain tells me to plan every action out so I can arrive places on time. It sends adrenaline to my body that ends up manifesting as extreme anxiety and leaves my hands staking while I try to catch my breath. My brain does not like to be late. I am still trying to figure out if this develops from my fear of facing consequences, like being scolded for my tardiness, or my fear of missing out. I guess it depends on what I am running late to.
As a child my tardiness was usually something that fell out of my control, and not by choice. I came to have strong distaste for relying on other people to be anywhere on time. Ask anyone who has ever had to go anywhere with me about how antsy and impatient I become, sometimes angry. If you are someone who has ever experienced my anger in this situation I do sincerely apologize. And if you haven't experienced it in the moment I apologize for the way I either resented you for it or took it out on you later. I am working on this, maybe always will be.
I think the fear only developed from the shame I felt when I would arrive late and be scolded for it, usually by a dance teacher. It is never fun to be in trouble for being late. Shame is not a feeling I enjoyed, but does anyone? Other times I disliked being late involved activities of leisure and the fear of missing out. I am still trying to get a better understanding of this fear and how it came to be. Hopefully I will have more insight into this later in my life. Regardless of the how's and why's, when I was young I vowed to myself that I would not be late when I was able to drive myself and control my schedule. This was a poor promise to make. Now it has just left me feeling anxious as I face many other uncontrollable factors that can stop me from arriving on time.
My yogic mind has brought me to a place where I relieve some of my anxiety as I start to accept the inevitable and uncontrollable factors and question what time even is. When in an anxious race against the clock I tend to find myself asking, "WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF!". Why do we set times to arrive and times to leave that have us constantly tracking ourselves? I understand the basic origins and necessity of time to our way of living, but feel we have taken it to an unnecessary level. We give time so much control over our lives. We have even gotten to the point where time dictates what we do and feel at any given moment.
I teach a 5:30pm yoga class at a local gym on Tuesdays nights. This time of day on a weekday comes packed with information about what we should be doing and feeling. The hands on the clock basically read, "Work day is ending, you feel tired and lethargic, how will you get through the rest of this day". 5:30pm falls within the time frame that advertisements for caffeine and energy boosters thrive on. I tried tonight to encourage my class to redefine what 5:30pm on a weekday means for them. We focused on creating space in the body for energy and using the breath to build lasting energy in the body and spirit. This was not a simple task as it asked the class to let go of the defining role time plays in their lives. All of my efforts in guidance towards this goal felt extremely hypocritical when I had to look down at my watch in order to keep track of time and the flow of class. When I try to be free of time I am forced to attend to it based on the world set up around me. This is one of the many reasons why my brain and mind argue.
Time is a trickster. It likes to let you believe you have so much and yet so little of it. It likes to move slowly when you need it to fly by, yet fly by when you want a moment or moments to last forever. There is so much to be unpacked in just those sentences and concepts of time. There are so many more perspectives of time that go beyond what I have even written. And yet here I find myself growing tired. I look down at the clock and am overflowing with thoughts about how 8:10pm is defining my life, telling me "its past time for dinner, you will be heading to bed in an hour." Time is always reminding me of things passed and what lies ahead, pulling me so far out of each individual moment. I want to find more experiences and moments where I don’t look at the time or wonder what it is. I don’t want to be pulled into the past or the future. I want to be in the present, where time is irrelevant. Keep finding more of that.
