Make Friends With Time

♫ ♫  Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes.

How do you measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

How do you measure a year in a life?   ♫ ♫

So begins the second act of “Rent,” the Broadway mega-hit musical of a few years ago. And the next lines are, "How about love? Seasons of love."

I recalled these words recently when my friend Tim, who’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, commented that he might not be here a year from now. In the time remaining he’s trying to enjoy every moment and take one day at a time. I guess you could say he’s measuring time in “daylights, sunsets, midnights, and cups of coffee.”

A day, of course, is 24 hours; 1,440 minutes; and 86,400 seconds. That’s a lot of moments, when you think about it; a lot of precious time not to waste, a point the Hermit Philosopher’s cousin Doug Smith makes in his book, Happiness, The Art of Living with Peace, Confidence and Joy.

Doug’s major premise is that to be happy we need to live in the present. He quotes an old Eskimo proverb: “Yesterday is ashes, tomorrow wood. Only today the fire burns brightly.”

That’s just one of many ways to make the point that we only have now. We need to use “now” effectively because it’s all we’ve got. Regretting the past and worrying about the future wastes energy. And, because it’s inefficient, multi-tasking wastes the “now.”

We all do it. As I sketched out the first few paragraphs of this post I had a football game showing on TV and was continually interrupted by email pings, text messages, and moves my opponents made on my Words With Friends app. In this “atmosphere of manic disruption,” as Michael Harris calls it in his book The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection, I realized that I wasn’t concentrating on the task at hand. I needed to make friends with time.

Time is a savings account that begins each day with 86,400 units of currency. The balance decreases steadily, reaches zero at midnight, and gets replenished in the same amount one tick later. So, the key to being happy and productive is to spend that currency wisely — be present in the moment, stop multi-tasking, and “do now what you are doing now,” as Doug puts it. When I’m tethered to my devices and trying to do many things at once, I’m not being a friend with time and I’m on the path to frustration and unhappiness.

Doug suggests a method for staying present in the moment. He calls it “thresholds,” an idea given to him by a business consultant. The technique is to think of every door you pass through as new starting point. As you cross the threshold, concentrate on where you are, not where’ve you’ve been or where you need to be minutes or hours later. Focus solely on what you’re to do in that place you just entered.

Before I started using “thresholds” I did a lot of thinking about the hereafter. I would enter a room and wonder, “What am I here after?” The “thresholds” technique helps me focus. Helps me stay present in the moment. Helps me make friends with time.

In an article about the death of David Cassidy, his daughter, actress Katie Cassidy, quotes the singer’s last words: “So much wasted time.” She then vows that this is a daily reminder for her to share her gratitude with those whom she loves and never to waste another minute.

It’s a good reminder for us all. ■