Pause and Reflect
I was eleven. I was a little mad at my parents for not letting me buy my list of things at a supermarket. Reason? They said they didn’t have the time to first search my stuffs at the large number of racks and then stand in a long queue at the billing counter. I did not concede and kept throwing tantrums.
That is the kind of scenario I have grown up in, in fact most of us have. A ‘time-bound scenario’. We have been waking up to the sound of our alarm clocks, wanting to snooze eternally but deep within knowing that each snooze would cost us huge. The loss of ‘time’. I don’t remember the last time I did not set up an alarm in my phone before sleeping and none of it felt abnormal until we reached the state of a lockdown and were supposed to stay at homes, all the 'time’.
It was when I was looking at the clock still as many times as before but I did not feel my life being a function of the numbers it displayed, that I realised what a significant part time had started playing in our lives. Most importantly, the fact that we were always looking at the clock and yet were running out of time was a pensive one. Thanks to this lockdown period, I got the 'time' to think about it.
A psychologist friend of mine put it in the simplest way possible for me. He said, and I quote, “We are living in a time period when everyone has innumerable pending tasks in their minds and not enough time to execute it all well. This is bound to make people stressed and anxious all the time.” He went on to explain it by citing the example of an Indian wedding. He said that in earlier times, people would start wedding preparations months before the date of the wedding and the wedding too would go on for days. However, now everyone is facing such a paucity of time that the bride and groom even come to the destination of their wedding on the day of wedding often! Where were we heading towards? None of us had enough time. For anything.
Since we have been in a state of lockdown, I have started to notice the tiniest details in things. I look at the view from my balcony a little longer. My mom told me the sunset looks lovely from it, I had never noticed that before. While she is cooking, I pay attention to the minute peculiarities in her cooking style and note it in my mind. I look at my father, observe the way he deals with outsiders and gives time to both family and his work, balancing well. I go for a walk in the evening, and have started to notice all the beautiful plants that have been planted in the society. Earlier, I would get out of the house, get into the lift and then the car and drive away. Now I actually notice each and every thing in and around my building. I also meet the same faces everyday and bond with each of them with a smile. I felt I had been using the same set of toiletries in my house as I lived for such a short time due to my college being in another city. Now I have replaced most of them with new ones. My point is that I feel a connection with everything around me like never before because I am giving those things 'time’. A lot of my friends who have pets at their homes have told me that their pets are happy like never before, because everyone is at home. All. The. Time.
In a nutshell, if you give 'time' to all the things, work and people you are connected with, you might well find the calm and composure you have been complaining about lacking in you. Most importantly, you might find answers to the questions and the solutions to your problems you weren’t able to find due to lack of 'time’.
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