We are often slaves to time. Our lives are dictated by the unstoppable passage of hands around the clock. I must be at work by 9:00, so I must leave by 8:15, so I must arise at 7:30... I am guilty of letting the clock dictate my actions, or at least influence them unduly.
Perhaps it is an artefact of how I was raised. Perhaps my parents were anal-retentive about timeliness. I could assign blame to them or to God or to my environment or merely to my humours, but blaming will not change the fact that I am ruled both wittingly and unwittingly by time. I recognize that having such an attitude towards time is unhealthy, but I am afraid I do not know how to change it.
Time is awfully inconsistent. Some hours feel as if they were seconds and some seconds last as long as days. Chatting the night away with someone dear to you can make time flow as Niagara Falls, but holding a plank is as slow as the tortise.
I, unfortunately, am a mere mortal, and I am limited insofar as the next man who can only spend the ~56700 waking seconds each day. I've been trying to get around to the book "Time Management For Mere Mortals" but there is so much to do, so much to read and so little time. I lament the fact that you can only buy this as an eBook from Amazon. And that they've made it harder for me to download it so that I can send it to my non-Kindle eReader.
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Management-Mortals/dp/0374159122
Perhaps my fascination with and subjugation by time comes from watches. I've always liked watches, ever since I asked for one to use while taking exams at 15. I've had a decently extensive collection, from a few treasured Seikos to the ever-loved Casios and a few Vostoks straight from Russia (before the war). I have worn one nearly every day since then.
I had somewhat of a manic fascination with smartwatches. Once Apple Watches started to get popular, I had to have one. And I had to buy a Garmin, too, because they had better fitness tracking suites. Not that I ever really noticed a difference, though. And I bought not one but three different OnePlus watches once I jumped ship to the Android side of things. And I even dabbled with the Amazfit ecosystem, the most recent of those being a Balance 2 (which is really a nice watch). I would muddle over spec sheets and user reviews to find the 'best' one. The best one, of course. I only wanted the best --why would I willingly use something inferior? In hindsight, they never really added much marginal benefit to my life. I need another thing begging for my attention like I need a hole in the leg. I most certainly tried to hit the copium. Why are smartwatches better than regular watches? Why are regular watches better than smartwatches? Why are smartwatches essential in [insert year here]? I would Google and Reddit (accursed be that site) for much, much longer than I should have. I still occasionally try to rationalize myself into using one.
Now that I'm doing the dumbphone thing, they seem less and less useful. I suppose if there are no notifications to alert me, then their main benefit is to track 'stuff'. But the tracking really doesn't do anything. I have made no significant health changes with regards to the data that was tracked. It boils down frequently to me noticing that I've had a poor night's sleep (no duh, I was there). A part of me wants to figure out why I could use one, how it could make my life easier. But we have lived for the past four thousand years without them, and I'm sure we will make it four thousand more years beyond them.
They are a cool concept, though.
During my World of Warcraft period, I played as a goblin. Goblins have a few funny lines when clicked on, one of which is "Time is money, friend!" I am only now realizing that in my adulthood. It would be a cliche to say that time is our most valuable resource. I feel guilty frequently for 'wasting time'. Everything I seem to do seems to be taking away time from something else. And I am not good at putting my principles into my timetables.
People often share 'productivity tips' to make more out of their time. Some of them are somewhat useful, others are banal, and some are really wastes of time except for certain people. I recently read "How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day" from some guy in Edwardian London. Its substance consisted mostly of "get up earlier lol and keep a schedule". I believe nothing further has been said in the hundred years since then with regards to spending time.
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