Attitude Towards Time

Meditation instructor Christiane Wolfe says, during her body scan meditation, "Nowhere to go.  No one to be for now."  That instruction helps me relax, literally often causing my shoulders to drop.

One "normal" way of being in relation to time is being always aware of where I need to go next, always mentally preparing, rehearsing.  This is like the continuous play mode on Spotify where the beginning of the next song is superimposed onto the beginning of the next.  There are no breaks.  Time is headlong.  I'm not sure if it's especially moving FAST, or just unremittingly.

Another "normal" way of being is anxious about the enormity of time.  It's 20 years until retirement.  I'm stuck in church/school for the next X hours.  So, it's not about the actual amount of time (one hour, 20 years), it's about the enormous distance to the end of some segment of time. Here you are captive to time.  I'm not sure if it's especially moving SLOWLY, or just intimidating, looming.

Another way is anxiety about how little time there is before X.  Another way is heavy boredom (the boredom worse when you have to seem interested or engaged rather than spaced out.)

All of these ways of relating to time seem troublesome.

All of these ways are different than the relation to time that is called for in meditation.  There, you are witness to the unfolding of life.  The grass grows.  Cars go by.  Birds are singing from the tops of garage roofs.  I found an old journal entry when I note that "everything develops and changes as it must."  There's a meditation technique I recall from high school where you are supposed to imagine that you're seeing the world through portholes, or like a deepsea diver suit, which deemphasizes your active engagement in the world (your illusion of agency or self-centeredness) and asks you to see that it -- time -- is moving steadily, a slow stream, drifting.   

It seems worthwhile to train yourself to get into right relationship to time.  I wonder if time management tools and techniques (pomodoro?) help create a better relationship or worse.