Don’t you just hate waiting?

It seems to me that a big chunk of our lifetime is spent in waiting. Waiting to board a plane, catch a train, at ticket counters, for the concerts to start, for your food, for your friends, coworker, boss, in traffic, etc. (The only thing that doesn’t make me wait is my dog. He’s always ready to go). Waiting is a an unavoidable evil, like dress shoes (which I hate; they’re slippery, uncomfortable and often very ugly). The thing about waiting is that it is something over which you often have no control, and we understandably get really riled up whenever there is anything that affects us that we can’t take command of.

“But Hani, your talking like your life is 100% efficient for you to rant on time lost that sometimes you actively waste more of yourself?” I know that’s what you’re thinking. You’re right. My life, no scratch that, our lives are not a system of perfect efficiency. We often waste time fully conscious of the consequences. We are not robots (but we are often sheep, considering the sad state of the dominant part of pop culture and moronic TV programming, almost everywhere). We are not even the fully rational beings as economists and other social scientists like to assume we are when working with theoretical models in which everything seems to fit, citrus paribus. Our behavior is rarely governed by single decision-influencing factors in isolation, that being the ever elusive problem of valuing the intangible. The attempt to place an economic or numerical value on certain things in life is but an outcome of the frustration that is the result of trying to look at models assuming that “all other things are equal”. The problem is, all other things are never equal.

Going back to the issue at hand; time (or lack of it thereof). Being 100% time efficient implies being 100% rational. That, in turn, means that you have to streamline your existence by shunning any activities that can be seen as time wasters. How do you do that? You just can’t, because if you do you are a social outcast at best (hanging out with friends is wasting time. right? Remember the problem of valuing the intangible) or just plain nuts at worst. I did not use the cliched reasoning of “because we’re human”, because this is one of my pet peeves. I heard people justifying being sloppy and incompetent just because they’re “only human”. Friends, what is it about being human that makes you a useless slacker? Admittedly, a lot is wrong with humanity. Just watch the 6 o’clock news for a quick primer on the current state of affairs of humankind. Sad isn’t it? Conversely, there is also plenty of good, it is just smothered by layers of bad. What defines one’s character, in my opinion, is how one rids oneself from the inner weakness. It is the ability to achieve true personal evolution, and by “personal evolution” I am not talking about growing gills or grafting wings onto yourself. I am talking about shifting your own dogmatic code of habits towards the better, healthier and more efficient.

Okay, time out. I don’t want to sound like I am preaching from on top of my moral high horse, because, like Henry Rollins once quipped, my moral high horse is a “three-legged nag with no teeth and flies and vultures circling overhead”. I am just thinking out loud, which is another one of those unoriginal excuses we make when we want to annoy other people with our “opinions” when they don’t really care.

I go on…

Here is the truth to which we often turn a blind eye: There is no such thing as “catching up”. You do what you do and that’s pretty much what you get. A few among us have the luxury of doing what they want when they want. The rest of us have to earn a living, work on college degrees and get entangled in other mundane life pursuits. Here is the thing though: such boring but neccessary pursuits do not have to be so. You make them so. Let me try to explain.

Here are a few questions among many that I have asked myself and still keep asking since I finished my undergraduate degree three years ago. Right next to each question is my own wrong answer (in red), below each is what I think is the correct one (in green), and the decision I made based on what I thought was the correct answer.

• Why do you choose to spend time on education that you are not interested in? Because the job market requires it.

Can’t you study something you like and make plans accordingly? Yes, you just don’t know what you are really interested in. Yet. I enrolled in an MBA program right after graduation. Hated it. Switched to a multidisciplinary program in economic development which I am very happy with and interested in. What am I doing after graduation? I am in the process of figuring that out, and in the meantime enjoying studying something I am genuinely interested in.

• Why do you keep putting off things you like (e.g. travel)? I can’t afford it and I don’t have time.

With enough planning and budgeting, it can be done. Relatively frequently even. Apart from on-the-job travel (which is obviously paid for by my school) I have been doing a fair share of budget travel during the summers of the past few years, often in not so cheap destinations. The secret? Subsist on bread and cheese, sleep in 10-person hostel dorm rooms, and ask for a student discount everywhere you go. Having a marginal interest in night life and the club scene helps too.

• What am I going to be doing 5 years from now?..... (no answer)

How about a year from now? How about a month? How about next week? We often make the mistake of looking too far ahead for details, or for ideas on what to do now, when what we should be doing is focusing on the more concrete givens of here and now (with the projected future only being a guide), becuase these are simply the constituents of the tomorrow about which we are uncertain. In my opinion, outlines are for tomorrow, plans are for today. Be flexible and open to what life throws at you.

• Why do you keep doing things that you don’t like and let some people piss you off? You have to put up with a certain level of bullshit to do certain things.

Do no BS, Hear no BS, Have no BS. Say you’re walking down the street, and someone comes up to you and wants to hand you a pile of dog shit. Will you take it? (Not unless its being handed by, say, Jessica Biel) There are always alternatives than putting up with bullshit and those who propagate it. The examples are too many to list here.

Why am I being so uptight about time? Largely out of frustration with it. I spend too much time thinking about time, which wastes my time (no pun intended). Sometimes I am as sharp as a samurai sword, pursuing tasks with single-minded determination that almost scares people I know (which arguably could be attributed to the amount of caffeine I consume, which makes me bug-eyed and crazy. I am not a substance-dependent person, however). Other times I am the worst procrastinator. Not because I like to, but because I have trouble prioritizing things. Again, not because I am inept, but the fact is that, to me, everything is important. There is only so much you can cram in one lifetime, right? Visits to bookstores distress me because I realize I am never going to read all of the books I would like to read. Ideas of going places I have never been before mentally haunt me because I know there will be things I will never get to see. A 5-hour documentary about the extinct species of Mozambique on TV? Oh yeah, tell me more.

I know what you’re thinking now? “Why would you want to read everything, go everywhere, and do as much stuff as you can? Chill, man. You need a hug or something.” Yes, I know it probably sounds like a stupid, ethereal and futile pursuit. It is actually counter to sound time management to be like that. Nevertheless, the way I personally see it, it is about being alive. It is the quest for the interesting and enriching, not the effervescent and momentary.

I have a piece of paper pinned to the wall above my desk, on it is the simple but true lyric from the song “Shine” by the Rollins Band from their album Weight.

“No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time
No such thing as down time
all you got is life time… go!“

This has probably become my mantra.