Going to spend my time this way
Andrew Garfield in the fantastical musical ‘Tick tick boom’ discovers the joy of acting as a child and croons in delight as he makes a vow that “he is going to spend his time this way”.
As he dragged the note to a higher pitch, the words, more than the sound resonated within me. Like the character in the movie, I made a vow. It happened as spontaneously and unconsciously as the beating of my heart. In the next beat (pun intended), I decided that I would no longer focus on finding meaning in my life, I would direct my energies on how I am going to be spending my time.
# Time == life
Time flows like an eternal river and your life swims along with it. Time is life and life is nothing but time personified. Everything begins with, and in, time. Everything comes to an end with it. Nothing escapes the clutches of time; neither the universe nor Death itself.
Nothing can impede it; time continues its relentless march. It continues to flow regardless of whether you do anything or not. Whether you spend or squander it, time (and so your life) flows away.
Deciding how you are going to spend your time is deciding how you are going to live your life. Your choice about your time is your choice about your life.
# Choice for others or yourself
Decide how you are going to spend your time before others decide it for you. Either you make your choices or have the choices made for you. As you make the choice, be mindful that you have made the choice, not for others, but yourself.
Rarely are your choices made solely for yourself; far too often, your choices are made for others. Any choice that is made for others comes from the ego. Any choice that you make for yourself comes from deeper within. An answer that comes from the ego is an answer for everyone else, an answer that comes from deeper within, is an answer for the self.
The ego answers every question as if it is asked by others. The ego answers the question, “How would I like others to know how I spend my time?” The subconscious answers every question as if it is asked by the self. It answers the question, “How I am going to spend my time?”
The ego is concerned with how others see you spending your time rather than spending your time. Then you worry about showcasing your life instead of living your life. Then you seek validation and not meaning.
Answer the question for yourself and no one else. This is your time that you are spending, your life that you are living. Others cannot, and should not, be deciding for you. Others cannot, and should not, spend your time and live your life for you.
# The answer might change
The answer, once discovered, is not eternal and it is not the only answer. The answer, like all else in life, is susceptible to change. You change like the seasons, too gradual to notice but too drastic to ignore and there is no reason why the answer will not change with you.
The question will never change but the answer will also never remain the same. With the change in life, there will be a change in how you decide to spend your time.
The only way to lead life and thus the only way to spend your time is to change with the change. Change with the change or be changed by it; either way, there is no escaping it. You either swim with the flow of life or you are dragged by it.
Drop the act if you no longer wish to spend your time that way and find something else into which you want to sink your life and your time.
# Am I cut out to spend my time this way?
Once you have the right answer, you will know, because all other questions will melt away like a stick of ice cream on a summery Indian sunday. Another question will pop up in its place, “Am I cut out to spend my time this way?” The question will arise as inevitably as steam from a boiling pot of water for one of two reasons:
- You compare yourself to others
Once you give your time and life to an act, you are bound to find others who have chosen to do the same. This too is inevitable, as inevitable as the sun bringing in light and the day being followed by night.
You will find the others because that is how the universe works. Everything ends up with its kind; similar atoms roam the empty spaces till ion the vacuum each other they find.
You might collaborate, you might be inspired, and you might interact. You might do some of it or none of it but one thing you will do without doubt is you will compare. Envy runs faster than most other emotions and you will find it barging into your mind. You will measure yourself against them, wondering if they are better than you or are you better than the rest.
The emergence of this question is only natural. It serves to remind you that you are human after all. If, however, you cannot banish this question, then I would implore you to look not at others but your own yourself.
For when you find the one thing you want to spend your time doing then none of this matters, everything else is reduced to white noise. You do not compare to others, you do not care about others. You are simply content with and immersed in your act. There is only the activity and nothing (and no one) else.
Which brings us to… - The act itself
The other reason that question might rear its head is when you care about the act itself. When you wonder if you are worthy of it. When you question if you are doing justice to it.
The emergence of this question is also natural. You are, after all, trying to be more than just human. If this question refuses to leave your mind, do not fret because what you were searching for, you have come to find.
Simply by being conscious of your contribution to the act and of doing justice to it, you have proven yourself to be worthy of it. Simply by expressing the desire to be worthy, you are halfway there. Now commit to it and let your actions do the rest. Give it everything you have. Show the act what you got and let it decide if you are worthy or not.
Trust the universe, there is intelligence in its design. Just like hunger is a signal to eat and tiredness is a signal to rest, this doubt is a sign to dive right in. Give your time and life to it and the rest will find its way.
The universe will help you find the way because you are nothing but the universe in action. Listen to the whispers of the universe and allow it to act through you. It will come as naturally to you as collecting honey from a bee. You will blow like the wind and wave like the sea.
#The forest for the trees
This shift in focus from finding meaning in my life to simply discovering how I would want to spend my time has brought me peace, calm, and, most importantly, existential release.
Meaning is far too focused on the future; it is obsessed with the big picture. Meaning makes you live in an imagined future and forego the real present. Meaning has you trying to create the bigger picture without filling in the details. Meaning has you looking at the forest but missing out on the trees.
Meaning is a humanized concept as real as time itself. This is why there is no meaning to life except the one chosen by you. The choice to have meaning is not made once in your life, it is to be made in every moment that you are alive. The focus should not be on creating meaning in life instead it should be on creating meaning in the moments in your life. You cannot raise a forest without planting trees.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
— Steve Jobs
And because meaning is intertwined with, and embedded in time, meaning is decided or bestowed by how you decide to spend your time. Dictate meaning by deciding how to spend your time. Do not worry about how it will all come together, focus on bringing it together.
Bring yourself to the now. By figuring out your now, you will figure out all your future now-s. By figuring out how you want to spend your time, you will figure out the meaning of your life. And when you retrospect, you can look back in amusement and awe about how in spending your time right, you lived right. How by figuring out how to have fun with your time, you figured out life.
