I’m pretty sure that at some point in another blog that I wrote that time isn’t just of the essence, but is in fact, the essence. The world is awash in people wishing for more of everything. More wealth and more happiness are probably the most abundant desires, but neither cash nor contentedness are achievable unless you have more time.
At some point in all of our existences we are all forced to accept that our time is limited. But in order to not spend our days in a state of philosophical anxiety we ignore this most fundamental nature of time. I think that this deliberate ignorance keeps us sane, but at the same time the mechanism of sanity preservation disallows us from placing the appropriate value on everyday moments.
In fact, we’re so dismissive of the value of these moments that we’ve invented the term quality time. I’m not contemptuous of the idea of quality time, but I think that boatloads of people have an odd perception of what quality means. I think that a sizeable group of people attach the quality label to what they judge as accomplishments they’ve managed during an allotted timeframe. Things like a couple of days where they scaled Everest or a three year period where they climbed the corporate ladder. Those moments when you reach the pinnacle are certainly memorable, but I always wonder what kind of time sacrifice was necessary to achieve those goals.
How much of your limited time did you allocate to late nights at the office, or to conditioning yourself to function in a low oxygen environment as a couple of examples. Did you throw away a marriage or were you absent for your kids birthdays?
Possibly.
In fact, the desire to achieve a specific goal means that the time you spend in that pursuit leaves you less time for everything else. And because of the very nature of our existence you only get to judge the value of how you’ve apportioned your finite moments when your time is up.
Or very nearly up.
I’m not saying a person shouldn’t strive for achievements. We need to work enough to not be homeless. It’s likely a challenge to achieve a Zen level of appreciative contentedness with your existence, if your stomach is growling while you’re sleeping under a bridge.
So yes, you need to work to eat and to sleep on a mattress with a roof over your head.
But what I am saying is that quality moments are all around us, and sometimes we need to adjust ourselves to recognize those moments and appreciate them while they’re happening.
Some examples are required to illustrate I think.
A friend of mine just informed me that he wasted most of an entire weekend binge watching the Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. I’ve watched some of the series and I found it mildly entertaining. Obviously my friend found the show interesting enough to cram three years into a weekend, and so I was left wondering how the hell being comfortable and interested was a waste of time?
I asked this same friend if his Netflix weekend was a solo experience. No, he said, my wife and the dog shared the couch with me for all of it. I know this guy is fond of both his wife and the dog and so I asked him again how the hell was his weekend a waste of time?
He was comfortable. He had a dog and his wife snuggled up to him. He was entertained and he had snacks.
Sounds like quality time to me.
But he insisted that there were other things he should have been doing, like cleaning his eave troughs and prepping his house and yard for winter. I concurred that those things need to be done. He’s a good Canadian boy after all and the plugs in snowblowers aren’t going to change themselves. I get it and I approve of his winter preparation, but I was confused at how some required maintenance made the Netflix weekend a waste of time.
It didn’t.
Winter isn’t here yet and there’s still time to give the snowblower the attention it demands. You’ve got an entire weekend in the memory bank where you were in proximity to creatures and humans you’re fond of.
I know this guy well. I can guarantee that his dedication to maintenance is going to mean that his snowblower is going to outlast the dog, so in my estimation his Netflix weekend was the very definition of quality time.
Moments in time that he might not get again.
Because the world is arbitrary and may or may not provide you the same opportunity. So I guess what I’m saying is fuck the snowblower. It can wait until Monday.
Some people have a much better sense of appreciation of quality in time, and some people bring quality to time. Those people are good to have around because they carry others with them, and make time memorable. And when you’re evaluating quality time what you’re doing is judging whether or not that time spent was valuable enough to be memorable.
Of course we all have memorable moments that weren’t great, and weren’t what you could call quality time. But although this might sound a little trite, I’ve always held the opinion that working through those ugly moments defines who you are, and should assist you in appreciating non-ugly moments.
People who’ve been to war probably appreciate peace is what I’m trying to say.
Not everyone has seen combat. But everyone fights their own personal wars, and so it’s not inconceivable that if you recognize when you’re content, safe and relaxed that what’s occurring to you is quality time.
You just have to see it when it’s happening, and then you get to appreciate the moment in real time, and in retrospect.
Quality time x two.