Mirrored W❄️rld

Tick Tock: The Finiteness of Time

We have reached the last day of the year. Many people are recounting the deeds they have done in the last 365 days, many apps are delivering minutiae of our habits even if you don't actually ask for one. These days, it's easy to obsess over the numbers: meters walked, number of shows watched, music listened, game played, books read. Most often, the conclusion is the same: not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough. The White Rabbit is about to be beheaded by the Red Queen.

On all fronts, we are besieged by services and platforms offering us the panacea. Multitasking. Increased "productivity". Lifehack. Swanky new planning regiment. Rarely do we pause and think that maybe the numbers are alright. Maybe they don't have to go up up up. Maybe they don't mean anything.

In the end, there are only 24 hours a day for everyone. Everything is a tradeoff. Modern world gives us an array of pursuits unimaginable to people of days past along with the promise of being able to conquer them all if you can master the elusive technique of time management. If only you optimize a bit more, you would be able to watch all the headliner show of the season while also acing your dayjob, crushing it in your personal projects, being the best mom of the year, and a slew other facets of today's living.

Sometimes you catch yourself idling away in a daze. Surely there are better ways to use it? You don't want to feel like you "waste" time. This is a trap. We need quiet moments to contemplate and refocus. Doomscrolling is often just the symptom.

Your body may be telling yourself it has run out of energy, that what you need is rest, but you keep cramming one more thing into your schedule so your mind wouldn't wander.

If I am to tally and compare my activities from year to year, a big chunk of my time not taken over by my day job can be broken down into several categories:

A pattern would emerge. In years I do a lot of personal projects, I read fewer books. In years I read more books than usual, I play less games. In years I read a lot of books and play a lot of games I eat a lot of takeaways, in years I do a lot of everything my mental and physical health tank, etc etc. Curiously, it almost doesn't matter if I have better equipments and/or workflow for my activities. Over the years I learn to do many things better and faster, but in the end the quantity of "outputs" remains almost the same.

Good management, while important, can only get you so far. In the end, time is finite and so is our stamina. Sometimes, you are still physically fit but mentally drained. Sometimes, you are mentally fit but physically drained. No matter how clever you rotate your activities, your peak performance may not be enough for everything you want to have on your plate.

Priorities matter.

Shencomix's iconic strip tiptoes between funny and sad when it's less a joke and more a reality.

What kind of life do you want to lead? What can't be compromised? For me, my time with friends and family would come first, followed by my creative pursuits. Reading books and playing games are vital to center myself. They're also fuel for my creative pursuits, so I try to always make time to consume but not too bothered by raw numbers. I am willing to use services to help me keep up with housekeeping. Everything in miscellaneous is to be done only if I have spare time/energy and can be cut from my schedules if time/energy runs low.

Once I have my priorities straight, I also don't see the need of "optimizing" every single category. I hold zero interest in anything promising I could read books faster. Hobbies are to be savored. Services condensing a book into two minutes summary? Ha, no thanks. I'd like to enjoy how words are strung together, the music of the sentences. Some days, I would hurl every ingredients I have into a pot and call it a day. Some days, I'd happily slow-cook curry from scratch.

A friend of mine confessed that he speedran multiple shows at once because there were so many things he wanted to watch and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to finish them all. He was convinced he could retain everything (spoiler: he couldn't). To not accept the finiteness of time is to live under the tyranny of FOMO. We just can't have everything in the world, so why not enjoy what we do have to the fullest? By trying to be everywhere, everything, all at once, we end up being nowhere.

I want to be present in my life, not just blurring through a checklist.

Happy new year.

#musings