Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, I wanna talk about something that's been on my mind lately, and, uh, it's all about time. I was reading this thing, and it started with this quote from, like, the movie *Troy*, you know, Achilles saying, "The gods envy us because we're mortal." It's kind of a heavy way to start, right? But it got me thinking.
Like, back in ancient Rome, when some big military hero would win a battle, they'd parade him through the streets, right? Golden chariot, cheering crowds, the whole deal. Must have made the guy feel, I don’t know, invincible. But the Romans, they weren’t dumb. They knew that all that fame could go to your head, so they had this person stand next to the hero in the chariot, and whisper in his ear, constantly reminding him, "Hey, remember you're gonna die!" Kind of harsh, but, um, effective, I guess. *Memento mori*, they called it. "Remember that you must die."
And that whole concept, *memento mori*, it's a big thing in Stoic philosophy, just, like, a constant reminder that time is ticking and, eventually, it's gonna win. I even heard some people take it to, like, a whole other level, using these memento mori calendars to track every week of their life, shading in the weeks that have already passed. I mean, it sounds kind of morbid, I guess, but it's really about appreciating the time you *do* have, right?
It's funny because humans have been wrestling with time forever, I mean, from worshipping it to trying to measure it, to trying to understand it. The ancient cultures, like in India or the Mayans, they saw time as cyclical, like a wheel, always turning. Other cultures had gods of time. Like the Egyptians worshipped Heh, who was like the personification of eternity. And even the Vikings, these big, tough warriors, they were worried about old age, personified as this old woman named Elli who could beat even Thor in a wrestling match! Just goes to show, time gets to us all, eventually.
Then, you know, we started to measure time. Sundials, water clocks, sand clocks... all to keep track. I think they had this huge water clock in China, like, a crazy, forty-foot thing! But the big breakthrough, I guess, came with the quartz clock, and then, later on, the atomic clock, which is so accurate, it won’t lose a second in, like, ten billion years. Crazy, right?
But it wasn’t just about measuring time, but also understanding it, right? Newton, he thought time was, like, absolute, like, the same for everyone, everywhere. But then Einstein came along and turned everything upside down with his theory of relativity. He said that time is relative, that it can actually slow down for someone moving really fast. Remember that movie, *Interstellar*? That was all about that!
So, where does all this leave us? Well, we’re living longer than ever, we've got all this technology to help us be more efficient. But, somehow, we feel like we have *less* control over our time. It’s this weird modern struggle, you know?
There's this part in *Through the Looking-Glass*, the *Alice in Wonderland* sequel, where Alice is running with the Red Queen, and they're running like crazy, but they're not getting anywhere. The Red Queen says, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" It's called the Red Queen Effect. It means, that, you know, you’ve gotta evolve, you've gotta keep moving forward, or you'll just fall behind.
And, honestly, I think a lot of us feel like Alice and the Red Queen, running faster and faster, just to stay in the same place. I mean, I've heard so many stories, like this investment banker who's always on a plane, or this marketing manager in New York City who's constantly bouncing from one thing to the next, or the medical student who's overwhelmed by exams, or even a mom who feels like she's always behind on chores. You know what I mean? It’s like that old saying, whether you’re the lion or the gazelle, you gotta start running.
How many times have you said "Busy!" when someone asks how you are? Probably more than you’d like to admit, right? We're all chasing something, society tells us it's money, but it’s coming at the cost of what’s truly important. We’re distracted, there's "attention residue," which is where when you switch from one task to another, some of your attention is still stuck on the first task, so you don't give the new task your full attention. It's like, you're in a meeting, but you're still thinking about the last one, or you check your phone and can’t focus on what the professor is saying. It’s a killer!
All this busyness, all these distractions, they have consequences. Time poverty makes us less happy, less productive, and more stressed. We exercise less, eat worse, and, well, you know, a lot of parents are too busy to read bedtime stories to their kids. Eighty percent of professionals say they don’t have enough time to do everything they want to do! We’re encouraging kids to load up their resumes instead of exploring their curiosity. We have more time than our ancestors, but less control over it. It takes all the running we can do to keep in the same place!
But there is a solution. The ancient Greeks, they had two words for time: *chronos* and *kairos*. *Chronos* is just regular time, like, ticking seconds. *Kairos* is different. It's about those moments that are more important, those times when the right action can create big results. It’s like, not all time is created equal. So, the key is to find those *kairos* moments, those moments of greatest leverage, and focus your attention there.
You don’t have to feel behind. You can get ahead. It’s time to stop running faster and start running smarter.