Death to Time: have you visited this grave?

Killing time is no joke. Imagine that being Time's headstone right there. It's dead, you killed it. I'm calling you out, but I'm really the one at fault here.

I started writing this because this blog post is my twelfth tab. I have eleven other tabs open on this computer. I also have a paper to-do list I am keeping for my day off tomorrow, I am texting a joke about something I just wrote and I'm drinking tea and I just got up to water my plants. I ate a granola bar. I started packing my lunch and sweeping the kitchen and then I remembered that I was in the middle of writing this blog post.

I am killing time--intentionally. I have so little time to myself and away from my regular full-time job that every second I have to myself, I have to occupy with as much productivity as possible. I am not passing time, I am killing it, making it vanish from this earth forevermore.

I start the overwhelm by sending myself email reminders.When I don't have time to get to something important, I send myself an annoying email to read later. On a morning like this, when I decide to confront myself about some ridiculous activity, I notice the hundreds of emails I have sent myself. Some have never been opened (sips tea and raises eyebrows while looking away).

So how do you manage? How do you make time for shit like mindfulness when your mind is so busy trying to be mindful about every last commitment? The answer is: you stop.

You have to stop. You have to take all the pieces of your puzzle and put them down on the table. Take a good look.

Are these even pieces from the same puzzle?

Put all corresponding puzzle pieces together.

Don't go grocery shopping in the middle of making sense of your puzzle.

If you do, the pieces will still be there. They'll be floating without order, without a sense of belonging. They'll remain unfinished, your table will be a mess, and worse of all- nothing will get done. You will have no beautiful image to sit and admire at the end of your hectic day.

All's this to say- it's not just slowing down and speeding up- it's stopping. It's taking the moment to consider everything you have to do, making it easier to break down and put back together. If you're too crazed to allow a stop, at least consider a pause. It's the only way our brains and bodies can really handle the extreme amount of expectation we give them. It's the only way we can bring time back from the dead.