“Time doesn’t exist. You have all the time in the world.”
While writing another essay to apply for A24, my favorite production company of all my favorite films, ready to disregard all self-respect for myself, to beg, crawl, and kiss the boots of the new gods of the industry who could do no wrong in my eyes - the demon that always possesses me takes my heart in their hands and begins to whisper in my ears.
The clock begins to tick with no sound. I am once again a slave to an invisible force with reckless abandon to destroy me.
My anxiety.
Only this time, I tell myself the new mantra I invoke from the depths of my mind.
“Time doesn’t exist. You have all the time in the world.”
Suddenly my shoulders drop, the hand playing with my heart finally lets go, the fog of my brain clears out, the voices that ping pong my fears back and forth of my mind finally stops serving blows.
There is silence. There is peace. And I had to stop before I began typing my essay. Is this how everyone feels? Could I have felt like this all the time? What did time have to do with my anxiety?
I spent most of my life analyzing the world around me in my head. Analyzing myself, critiquing myself and my artwork, judging others for their actions, even when it comes to writing - I’d rather be in my head, fearing the blank white expanse of a page. The possibilities are endless. I would constantly stop myself before starting, fearing the first sentence. Fearing the words I put down on the page was wrong – a waste of time, I retreated to my brain.
For some reason, I found safety there. Security there. But in the same place, I found a sense of security, a sense of invincibility; I was the most vulnerable. I lived here in the void of my consciousness, often without a roadmap or a script to follow.
Every interaction I had with others and the world around me felt like I was dodging missiles and subduing my thoughts. I was constantly listening and perceiving the world within my preconceived notions of right and wrong, how people should live, breathe, work, sleep. The expectation so high of others I failed to see how they were crippling me from living my own life. I created my own hell and never felt safe enough to take any risks.
The notion of time can be viewed as a measure of life, a sequence of events, as limited, precious, a void needing to be filled, money, a reflection of age, a reminder that we die. Time serves to keep us on track, to help us meet at the same place at the same time. Tracking time helps us manage time (or so they say). And this tracking of time allows us to negotiate with others, ourselves, and our worth to receive monetary rewards.
The awareness of time, more specifically, the understanding that time passes, will continue to pass and will always pass despite anything we do, including our agency, our wants, and desires. And as time passes, specific wants, desires, needs, and expectations begin to fade away, become rarer, disappear, and harder to maintain. We are older, possibly responsible for raising kids, caring for our parents and elders; maybe we settle down for stability and choose that career that guarantees us financial security rather than personal fulfillment.
So, we worry immensely about how we use our limited time. We worry about if we are depleting time the right way, if we are following our purpose, about how to find our purpose, about how to achieve happiness, how to secure happiness in the future, if we believe the present is not good enough. Suppose we have it; we worry about maintaining that sense of joy for as long as possible.
And when worrying about how we use the time and space on earth to fulfill our every need and wants - time escapes us. Because most of this time is spent worrying. Stressing about made-up notions of the right or wrong way to live life, stressing about what we think would make us happy, stressing out about what others will think of us, stressing about how we compare to others, stressing about what to do with our time, how to make more time as the inevitable, our death, creeps closer. When truthfully, we can do anything we want. To worry about what we don’t have - we can never fully recognize and appreciate what we do have. So much time spent believing we live in scarcity of something, we won’t have the time to go after what we want.
The time spent thinking about what something should be doesn’t give us the space, chance, time to try something new, to be creative, to do what we want at that moment to make us happy. Worrying about a time that does not exist and a time that cannot be changed is the only proper way you can waste your life. Everything else is an experience to help us grow. Whether you fail, make a mistake - these are all experiments you and I conduct. To find the best way/method to actualize whatever we want in this existence, on this vacation on Earth.
But the only way you can be/live this way is to forget about the past, everything before this present moment, and detach yourself from everything you expect from the future because nothing is guaranteed. We cannot predict nor control the future, so why worry about what if? What if we just enjoyed now? Because there is only now. The past is far gone, and the future has yet to come.
Rushing towards an unknown future could mean rushing towards disaster. Impatience is worrying instead of living. Once the future comes, the past is over. The present, the now, is temporary and deserves appreciation. What will you never get back in this moment? What and who can be gone in a flash you have not expressed gratitude towards?
Where in the present can I find joy?
When I acknowledge that time does not exist and adopt the belief I have all the time in the world, suddenly, I am no longer afraid of running out of it. Because time never runs out. We’re just in the habit of spending it up doing what we don’t want to do. We spend it in our heads.
Relinquishing my control of time, I can finally allow myself to just be and therefore try without fear of failure because we will all fail. It’s how we learn to succeed. Every attempt at a goal becomes a step closer to what we truly desire. But we must keep attempting, trying, putting pen to a blank page. Only then can I get better.
Stepping outside of my head, letting go of fearing the unknown to live in the world around me, I can sense the infinite time I have in this life. I can be at peace knowing that any action I take will always be of service to me.