Firstly, I would like to begin with my own relationship with time. I am usually late to every social gathering as my friends will tell you. It gets away from me. In my defiance of the notion of time, I procrastinate until the last possible second before I cannot be late. Consequently, I am always late. I feel a Alice in Wonderland Mr. Rabbit metaphor coming.
However, I am never late for my internship, university or work. I am never late for a new opportunity which presents itself, because if I am, I will be left behind in time, it is this that I fear. What drives me is the worth I attribute to these experiences and the immense amount of value attached to them. They will define my future.
Why is this? It is because I don’t want to let myself down. I don’t like to let people such as my family down. I want to be able to tell myself I am in a job that makes me happy and tell others about it. I want to make them appreciate what I do instead of bringing my profession down. I want them to be proud of what I do and become jealous of my success. Is that petty?
My friends do not understand what I wish to do in the future. My study is described as ‘Communications: A meme degree’ which offends me quite a lot. I am spending money to study something that I love. Investing my TIME in something that I will craft into my future. Proving this worth to them is important while their lack of understanding frustrates me.
The funniest part is, these people that I write about most likely won’t give me the time to read this post.
Time is profoundly against us in all aspects of life. I feel as though I am in over my head with the amount of work I have taken on. I am busy and I am tired. But I don’t want to show this weakness. Because if I do, it will look like I wasted my time. It irritates me when I say ‘I want to sustain a HD average‘ because it is not necessarily what I want, but it will assist me in proving my point to those who are against me. That my hard work correlates to this being a viable future. Anything else is translated to failure in my mind.
This notion frustrates me as the currency of my own time translates to a lesser value then that of their own. Why?
This notion of ‘proving’ myself is quite interesting because in the modern world, time is scarce and really, quite expensive. To find my ideal profession, I must have tenacity, must make time when there is none. At the moment, I am doing that.
I am a circus juggler, trying to throw up commitments, work, relationships and my future while maintaining my highest standards. The feeling of failure is not something I want to be familiar with.
The inevitable nature of time conveys the truth that death will eventually grasp us as we run against the intangible notion of time. We spend this intangible currency buying memorable moments, experience and transforming it into a tangible form of money, in reality, these experiences will eventuate into nothingness as well as transcend space and time towards death.
It is the translation of these experiences and the values that we pass down that are of vital importance. It is what we make of this antagonist of the human race that will define us. Time will forever be against us, that is fact.
Time is the intangible currency that has a use by date. What I hope to accomplish by this use by date I am not yet sure of. What I can see for my future is also unclear. What I do know is that I will always make use of my time to propel myself forward, because as they say, time is precious, now more than ever.
Someone telling me that my time, which I have invested, is ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’ or ‘idiotic’ makes my skin crawl. I don’t muck around with time. It is precious, and non-refundable. This resonates with my thirst for success. Time and experience correlate with success in my mind and limit the chance of failure. So much of this industry is left up to chance and networking and frankly, it frightens me. I just hope my time is spent wisely and was not an investment which I regret in the future (it is interesting how I talk about time like a bet or investment in the stock market. I cannot control what happens after I put my time towards it. How I bounce back from the result, that is what is important. I’m betting on my own horse. Me).
Because, as we all know, time is the antagonist of our lives. It is how we defy it that we are defined.
~krisesandchrosses~
Afterword: At the moment I am full time studying, interning two days and working in retail on weekends. Finding time to do anything is difficult, let alone living my own life. Having a serious reflection on time has enlightened me as to how I want to use this currency in the future. Success is important, but so is happiness.
krisesandchrosses 
Hi Kris,
I really like this post. It’s got me thinking about the management orthodoxy of time management (time as a resource which has to be carefully utilised in order to produce a result) and the idea of time as a commodity (something we choose to spend, in ways we find valuable or enjoyable). I think lots of us move between these two modes regularly, and maybe the busier you are, the more frequently you make those moves. Perhaps shifting between those modes is stressful. Or maybe that stress comes, as you say, from other people’s opinions (often unrequested!) on whether you should be managing or spending time. I’m going to share this post with my management consulting students. Thanks,
David
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Hey David,
I’m glad you enjoyed it! We live in a results orientated society with all the work being hidden in the shadows of the overarching result (or in my case degree and interest of industry). Time as a commodity is definetly becoming more and more prevalent and is attached to the term ‘attention economy.’ It the balance between managing and spending time that define who we are, what we do and our values. Under pressure, our values become more so prevalent. Other peoples opinions will always influence how you use things, its just how we are made up as human beings (or how I am made up). Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
~kris~
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This is a beautiful post, and so much of it resonated (definitely worth my time to have read it!). I especially like this “time is the antagonist of our lives. It is how we defy it that we are defined.” – because I was thinking about how time is completely outside of our control ; it moves on whether we use it in particular ways that we deem worthwhile or not…but as you say, we have agency to defy and thus define ourselves. I don’t know that anyone outside ourselves will ever value our time the way we value it, and yet we constantly allow others to do this for us. My brain is hurting right now as I try to find an epiphany that’s just outside my reach… I’ll blog when I get there! Thanks again, Kris
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Thank you for reading my post, I really appreciate it! I agree with you in that I don’t think anyone outside ourselves will ever value our time the way that we value it, but we are influenced by these people’s opinions for some reason. We find ourselves in a particular conundrum of peer pressure into buying those shoes or that video game we want because, well, they told us to, but instead of investing money, we use time as currency. Looking forward to reading your thoughts! 😊 Thanks for reading it Maha!
~kris~
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