Tag: hurry

Hurry Scurry Worry

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“Enough is abundance to the wise.” – Euripides

Of the things I think about, time and love have to be the top two topics. Sometimes they are separate thoughts, but often time they are combined in the same thought. Struggling with how to love and appreciate the moment, and the dear ones I’m with, when I’m often in a hurry.

It doesn’t help that June comes with six birthdays of family, including Cooper the dog, and dear friends, including mine in mid-June. That’s always a reminder of time with a “capital T.”

On a recent Sunday morning, I was deep in the vortex of hurry worry. This year, my mom signed Miss O up for a youth choir in a neighborhood church.  Miss O has a lovely voice and it was a fantastic activity for her. My mom managed all the transportation, and even took Mr. D along for some of the practices. All good.

But on the Sundays the choir performed, it was a struggle to both watch Miss O sing and keep Mr. D entertained throughout the service. So, on the particular Sunday morning in question, I came up with the idea that Mr. D and I would walk to the church to expend a little of the morning energy while Miss O went ahead with my mom.

Mr. D and I left with enough time to walk the eight blocks, but not extra. As we were walking, I was feeling the time pressure to get there. Enough so that it prompted me to remember the meditation practice I’ve been working on to not hurry. I said a prayer.

When I told my mom about this later, she asked, “What did you pray for? That Mr. D wouldn’t find anything interesting along the way?”

“No,” I answered. “I prayed that we’d have enough time. Then I enjoyed the walk without looking at the time and it all worked out.”

It’s funny. We can either pray/hope/wish/focus on everything to go right. Or pray/hope/wish/focus on being okay with how things work out. The latter has worked better for me.

For another way to stretch capital T time please listen to our Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast: Episode 69: All You Have to Do Is Ask with Wynne and Vicki

Vicki Atkinson and I are big believers in the power of story – to connect us, to create intergenerational healing, and to make meaning out of the events of our lives. Each episode of our podcast will start with someone telling a story in each episode.

To listen to the podcast, Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts. Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

The Quantity versus Quality of Time

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“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Althsuler

This post was previously posted on 7/20/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

Last week I was driving in my car with my almost 7-year-old daughter at 8:29am when she said “Darn, I’m always a minute late for my favorite time.” She likes palindromic times – in this case 8:28.

It made me think about what I’ve been working on lately. Life feels hectic – summertime means different routines for each week, forms to fill out for camps, people to coordinate carpools with, a lot of additional details in addition to working my full-time job, taking care of kids and trying to maintain a social life.

In the midst of this, my goal is not to be in a hurry even while living a busy life.

That is to say, to try to be intentional and savor the things I’m doing. For example, I had on my to-do list an item to fix the fence where it had come apart at a post. That activity in and of itself doesn’t really have a high enjoyment value. But the other day when I stepped out to assess the task, I felt the summer sun on my back and saw the green of all the grass and trees around. The flowers of the garden are really flourishing and it’s an incredibly vibrant scene right now.

The task might not be much to talk about – but the scenario is gorgeous. When I hurry, I miss all of that. So I’m trying to take an extra breath or two, how long can that take – 11 seconds if I’m optimizing the length according to the Unified Theory of Breathing? Just a couple breaths add a dimension that makes me think of the quote from Auguste Rodin, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the opportunity wisely.“

There are two different Greek words that speak to this divide: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clock time so when my daughter is saying that she’s a minute late for her favorite time, it’s chronos we’re talking about. Kairos is translated as the “right time” as in now is the right time to step in, speak up or enjoy what I’m doing. I might have to be somewhere at a particular time, as in chronos, but kairos calls me to be mindful of the trip.  

I usually manage to arrive on time, chronos speaking, but I frequently mess up the quality of the time, kairos, in order to do so. In fact, I did that just yesterday when I was hurrying the kids to the car so we’d be on time for our carpool. My almost 3-year-old son wanted to hold the door for his sister and in my desire for efficiency, I didn’t listen to him and missed the right time to enjoy the spark of what he was doing. A small moment that is neither here nor there in the big picture, unless all the small moments are rushed like that.

What I’ve learned is when I manage not to be in a hurry even while life is busy, it prevents me from feeling like I’m a minute late for my favorite time.

How do you approach the quantity versus quality of time? Any tricks to slow yourself down when you are hurrying?

If you aren’t short of chronos, I’ve also posted a related post on the Wise & Shine blog: Speed Reading

(featured photo from Pexels)

Try Not to Hurry

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“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.” – The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

My sister-in-law was over the other day and told me that ever since she was out sick for a week about 6 weeks ago, she’s felt like she is always running behind. Then she listed all the things she hasn’t done and it struck me that none of them had to do with being on time, but instead were all about what she wanted to do with her time.

It struck a chord in me because I’ve been reading Alan Burdick’s book Why Time Flies (thank you for the suggestion, Dr. Stein) and he talks about all the different ways we use the word time:

Duration – the ability to determine how much time has elapsed between two specific events or to accurately estimate when the next event will occur.

Temporal order – the ability to discern the sequence in which events occurred.

Tense – the ability to discriminate between the past, present, and future, and the understanding that tomorrow lies in a different temporal direction than yesterday.

The “feeling of nowness” – the subjective sense of time passing through us “right now,” whatever that is

Why Time Flies by Alan Burdick

It’s been my goal lately to try not to hurry even when really busy which speaks to that “feeling of nowness” that Alan Burdick describes. It also resonates with an idea that we need to distinguish between what is important to us as opposed to what seems urgent that Gary Fultz wrote about in his post A Good Interruption Solution? “We are all in a different place between the urgent and the important. Let me suggest there is probably not enough time in life to do all of both.“

With all those ideas about “time,” it inspired my post for the Pointless Overthinking blog this week: The Quality versus Quantity of Time.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Underneath the Urgency

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“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

I woke up this morning at 5:30am – a little later than usual. In the dark of a morning in January, I rolled out of bed thinking that I didn’t have enough time to do yoga in addition to meditate, write and read before I need to get my kids up.

I frequently feel like I don’t have enough time. I feel it on weekdays when I know I have a hard deadline to wrap things up with work so that I can go pick up my kids. I feel it on weekends when I’m immersed in kid chaos and can’t get personal to-do items done.

The more that I think about it, the more urgent it feels. Gripped by that feeling, I flail and get less done. It’s like a secret of physics that noticing the speed of time makes time go faster.

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never enjoyed a moment in which I was gripped by scarcity. And the majority of the mistakes I make are done when I rush.

And sometimes I can sense that it’s not a feeling of not have time (lower-case t) as in just that day but Time (upper-case T) as in before I die. Recently a 63-year-old friend died of complications of cancer treatment and I have another friend who is experiencing some progressive cognitive diminishments in her mid 60’s.

When I think about these friends, not only do I feel grief for them and their families but also a little frantic. Because having kids as an older parent means I will be 68-years-old when my youngest graduates from high school. I want to be fully present for my kids all they celebrate all their growing-up milestones. And beyond.

When feeling that urgency, the only thing I’ve found to do is to slow down. It’s a sense of reaching underneath the urgency to grab the fabric of life that’s just under the surface. Gripped by that ache of not enough time, I force myself again and again to return to this moment.

This moment, the one right here where I’m quietly sitting and writing these words is full of abundance. It’s a rich moment of quiet and calm. It’s a celebration that I haven’t yet run out of time because I woke up this morning.

Sure, I have to make choices about what I can get done today and prioritize. But making those choices when in the throes of scarcity usually means I make the short-sighted one. When I’m plugged in to the power of now, I can choose more wisely. And the other secret is that most of the time, the wisest choice is opting not to clean. 🙂