Folk mentality claims that one of the lamest, yet most effective and hardest to counter-attack excuses, right after “I am fine”, is “I don’t have time”. Relax, this is not another peroration about relativity, Einstein, McTaggart, presentism or time and how “it keeps everything from happening at once”. It is neither about its social importance or having economic value, nor about something being measured in attoseconds, tachyons or money. It is about time as priorities ordering tool. The sifter of ultimate choices.
“I don’t have time” is, in fact, a very reasonable excuse to be offered to us or to others when take them off the priorities list. Within a relationship, that means “you are not important to me enough to make time for you”. When we give it to ourselves it works as a defense and coping mechanism: I don’t have time to start a diet or go to the gym or give up drinking. It is true. In order for you to do so, it would require a good amount of energy, well packed with drive and motives. That implies focusing your attention and eventually changing a few patterns. And that is hard to do and requires not only energy but lots of time to re-wire those paths of good old habits.
I never buy this excuse, as I also sell it. I never had time for those who did not matter enough to me to make time for them. When we offer something as volatile, imperceptible and irreversible, yet so strenuous on our energy drive, such as “time”, we offer instants of our lives. Hold that thought for a second. How important should anyone be to be offered a slice of our lives, a bit of our only chance on earth? Damn important, I tell you. Yet, we offer plenty of time to things that seem but are not necessarily less important, and we do that with no qualms of conscience. We give time to our jobs, which we think might “take us somewhere”. Where? Maybe a higher position on some corporate ladder, which comes with a handful of benefits, and loads of personal sacrifice. We make split decisions, ordering the weight and consequences of things, people, tasks, and silly pretenses (prior to tense, after all) and then we wisely conclude “we don’t have time”. We really don’t.
But some gladly give their time to that. Why is that? How do we decide the order of priorities? A friend of mine might comment saying “Well, I increase my status if I score high on the corporate ladder, that would get me a nice female mate with whom I would have daughters- as some think beautiful people have more daughters- and that would insure that 50% gene transmission into my offspring, assuming jealousy plays its evolutionary role and prevents her from cheating on me. While if I go out with a beer-belly buddy and give him that time, it might not increase my status so ultimately, the survival of my genes is the basic idea of how I choose my priorities and to whom I give time. So I give my time to whatever/whoever increases my status”. It sounds logic to me. What is the ultimate destination that impulses our tiny little egos, except social recognition? Could be a temporal investment into the survival of the fittest theory? We tend to offer time, and thus invest our feelings and energy into something that rewards us enough to compensate for the feeling of time loss. If we believe the compensation is smaller than the investment, we do not go for it. We don’t participate in contests for the sake of action, in spite of what sensation seekers claim, we do it because we want to win. This is why I never believe the Oscar losers who claim it was an honor just to be nominated. No, it was not. It would have been an honor if they won. This is why they replaced “And the winner is….” with “the Oscar goes to….”. To compensate the ones, who did not win the award, for their loss of time.
Obviously, all our selections, either we are aware of them or not, are a sum of benefits minus costs. What do I gain and what do I lose if I spend something I don’t own, yet is the most precious thing to me, my time, with you? That is a pretty big investment. It is like a down payment for an apartment in a building that is not built yet. If the outcome results in a higher benefit, I would obviously effectuate that particular choice. Our lack of time is justified. We really do not have it. It is Universe’s fourth dimension, not ours, but it gives us sense and ordinates us internally. All we have is the knowledge that we are determined by its shortness -80 years on earth are not that much-, and the shade of fatalism that we could lose that at any given time. What will happen in the future - death that is- is already unavoidable, as death is the most imminent and immanent result of life. It is like seeing a new movie with Jesus Christ or the Battle of Hastings. How do you think it will end? There is no surprise there.
Thus, the first “lack of time” excuse we've uttered must have coincided with the discovery of life’s inevitable end. That was the moment we lost our credulity in afterlife and first said it. So, when was the first time you said it? When did the anxiety of time loss kick in? Was when you were around nine, right?
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