The other day, I forgot to bring my phone to work. I was a little worried at first, but then I realized that I didn’t really need it. People could probably reach me on my laptop if they really needed to, and I wasn’t planning on being in the office all day anyway. Although I don’t generally consider myself reliant or dependent on my phone (I don’t really use it all that much), I did notice the urge to take a look at it whenever I had some kind of break or downtime. I think maybe I didn’t recognize how often I was doing this rather than just allowing breaks and downtime to proceed without distracting myself.
I took transit home that day, and I had a very interesting experience. While I was waiting for the bus, I didn’t bother looking at the timetable to see when the next bus was going to arrive, because I didn’t even know what time it was anyway. Instead of checking the time and wondering why the bus had not come yet, I just sat at the bus stop and read my book. I became so immersed in my book, in fact, that I didn’t really even notice the time passing and was surprised when the bus arrived. I felt much less urgency and stress than I usually do when I take transit to and from work.
I think that being aware of time and when things are supposed to happen and when things that are supposed to happen are not happening can sometimes be a great source of stress. In those types of situations, I think we often end up checking, distracting ourselves, and worrying and ruminating about time in one way or another. Maybe someone isn’t getting back to us as quickly as we hoped, the bus is late, we have to wait for a long time in a grocery store lineup, we are stuck in traffic and thinking about when we would like to get home compared to when we will get home, and so forth. Being aware of and focusing on time can take us out of the experience of the present moment. Although time can be useful in so many ways, it’s probably also important to remember that it’s really not much more than an idea/concept. So, we’ve really become dependent on and beholden to something that we really can’t see, touch, taste, smell, or feel. I guess the trick is to use time in a way that’s effective to meet our goals, while also letting go of it when doing so will help us experience a greater sense of peace and contentment. ~Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.