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ENOUGH TIME
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
—Thomas Merton
It was my freshman year at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. School rules required all students to attend an infamous weekend retreat at Cedar Bend.1 Cedar Bend is a farm in northern Michigan designed to take guests back in time. Imagine turning off the highway and winding up in the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie. The main farmhouse features wood-burning stoves for heat and food, kerosene lamps for light, and handmade benches sure to give you a splinter if you sit just right.
Obviously, Cedar Bend lacks the tools of modern technology. There are no clocks, no watches, no laptops, no music devices, no Internet, no electricity, and no phones allowed. Just the land and whatever can be taken from the land for sustenance and enjoyment. All food is taken from the land, including vegetables, milk, cheese (churned from milk), and chickens, which must be killed and plucked to prepare for dinner. The most commonly asked question upon return from dinner preparation: “Who chopped the chicken’s head off?” Cedar Bend inspired the best and most-often-repeated stories while simultaneously stirring up the most fear.
For two nights of the designed experience we stayed in the farmhouse and slept well with our sleeping bags sitting on roughly carved bunk beds or snuggled up next to one of the wood-burning fires. We drank hot chocolate and coffee from those blue mugs with speckles of black paint on them that always get too hot in your hands. We sang songs with the one person that brought a guitar. Some huddled around a lamp to play a game of euchre2 (the card game of choice for anyone who grew up in Michigan) for a couple hours and ate popcorn popped over the stove. It was peaceful. We experienced some of the goodness of the early form of American life in which family was still valued and small innovations of convenience were few. Those two nights felt like communal living in an Amish farmhouse with some great friends.
After two nights, we took off on our “pilgrimage.”
When the sun rose, we began walking. Organizers gave each team of twelve a large wooden box about four feet long, two feet wide, and two feet tall. In the box were a couple of rain tarps, rope, matches, flour, plates, forks, mugs, two pots, salt and pepper, and cheese (if the caretaker at the farm felt generous). Outside of the box, they provided two jerricans of water, each holding five gallons. Whatever you brought for the weekend, you must carry on your back. The four guys in the group who lost the quick rock, paper, scissors competition usually carried the box and the water. Then we walked for what seemed like ages out into the middle of nowhere, with no buildings or signs of human life in sight.
When we finally arrived at our destination, marked on the maps, we began to fashion our temporary outpost. Two tasks consumed the day: constructing a shelter and building a fire. The fire was the easier option, assuming the wood was dry. We gathered leaves and twigs and placed a stack of wood large enough to last the day and night. It was important to store up enough wood to last us the night because we would count on it to cook food and keep us warm that evening. Let me remind you, this was fall in northern Michigan. Not only was it bound to get cold at night, but in the back of everyone’s minds were the Cedar Bend stories containing the S word: snow.
Next, we moved to the tarps to build something to sleep under for the night. It was a life exercise in group dynamics. Everyone had an opinion, but we ultimately landed on a design and built the structure combining the rope, tarps, and nearby trees.
We spent whatever was left of the day working the land, digging up vegetables, and weeding the garden for the group coming the next week. We also cooked lunch and prepared for dinner by trying to make dumplings out of the flour. The food never turned out exactly how anyone intended, and we ate undercooked or burned potatoes and pitiful mush that we called dumplings. Before long, the team of twelve sat around the fire, some of us lying on our backs, staring at the darkness in every direction and the brightness of the stars. Inevitably, someone started the scary stories, and eventually everyone fell asleep.
I experienced Cedar Bend twice more as an assistant to the professor. Once, when the students fell asleep, the professor looked over at me and said, “What time do you think it is?” We made our guesses, then the professor pulled a watch out of his bag. Both times, the entire group was deep in sleep, a couple of students snoring rhythmically, between seven and eight o’clock. These were the same college students that were normally up until two in the morning, causing a ruckus on campus. One day of hard work wiped out these students as soon as the sun set.
Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar on a camping trip with family or friends. The combination of experiencing fresh air and sun, doing hard physical work, and disconnecting from technology leaves us exhausted soon after the sun goes down. I’ve also discovered that sometimes simply disconnecting from time-telling devices that tell us how much time we have and what we need to do with that time drastically affects us as well. The day we disconnect from technology, we become suddenly exhausted. When time is hard to quantify, our bodies instinctively speak to us about needing more rest. Meanwhile, on a day-to-day basis, there never seem to be enough minutes in the day for everything we need to do.
There is never enough time. We go to bed every night with a to-do list longer than is possible to complete the next day. We all balance our time between family, friends, clubs, associations, church, study groups, prayer, reading, the gym, meals, our kids’ activities and sports, volunteering, and vacations. Simultaneously, we feel the need to document our lives through social media for whomever we’re not appeasing with our time, so they can see that we’re doing something significant with the time we’re not spending with them. Meanwhile, we feel like we’re not spending adequate time in any one of the categories on the list.
When we lament this sense of failure to a friend, he or she gently admonishes us, saying that our lives are out of balance. So we try to move the weights around on our scale to see if we can ease up the pain and live healthier lives. We pledge to get back to the basics. We plan out our week and try to be more intentional about spending time in each of these categories. Then we get to the end of the week and find we weren’t able to stick to the schedule because fifty things that weren’t in the plan came up out of nowhere—those things that are not just urgent but also important.
William Penn said, “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” So we stay up late into the night trying to catch up and wake up early trying to catch up. We rob Peter of time to try to pay off Paul. Time continues to tick away. We negotiate with our families to try to appease everyone who we say we care most about. When we are with one person we are thinking about another. Then we get tired. We feel sick. We are not happy. Our spouse is not happy. Our friends become acquaintances. Everyone feels shorted of our time in some way. And they are right. We have failed. We can’t do it all.
In her book The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin reminded us how to think about this very issue: “When I find myself focusing overmuch on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to ‘Enjoy now.’ If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future.”3
In a book about using our excess for good, why did I include a chapter about time? We don’t have excess time; if anything we never have enough. If Benjamin Franklin’s famous phrase “Time is money” is true, then we often feel impoverished. Yet, as many books, speakers, and experts have reminded me over the years, we all have exactly the same number of hours in every day. The difference comes in how we choose to use them. In order to use our excess for good, it is crucial to have the time in order to do good. In order to define “what is enough” for me in any area of my life, I need to take the time to evaluate where I am and where I want to be. Most of the world’s major religions have some form of The Golden Rule in their teachings: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We give lip service to the idea that people are supremely important. But what does our use of time say is important?
BUSY IS THE NEW FINE
Recently I started to recognize a pattern emerging in my daily polite interactions:
Me: “Hey, Joe! Good to see you. How are you?”
Joe: “Busy. Been a crazy month. How are you?”
Me: “Busy. A lot is happening right now.”
Barista: “Good morning! How are you today?”
Me: “Busy. How are you?”
Barista: “It’s been a busy morning!”
Notice a pattern here? There was a time, not so long ago, when the polite answer to the question “How are you?” was, “Fine.” It seems that busy is the new fine. We look at one another with that shake of the head, sideways smirk, and glossy eyes, proclaiming our busyness. This shared response succinctly identifies a recent cultural shift: we now determine the significance of a person by how busy they are. Somehow, busy has become better than fine. It seems especially highlighted since the economic downturn. Busy shows that we still have a job and things to do, which is a positive answer amidst the endlessly looping, negative news cycle.
The problem is this: busy is not better than fine. Just because I’m busy does not mean I’m fine. And when it comes right down to it, often busy means that I’m not fine at all. What we’re really saying with one simple word is, “I can’t keep up with everything in my life. I actually can’t keep up with any of the things in my life. But that makes me important, doesn’t it?”
Does anyone else feel like they’ve become a professional juggler? At any given time I am juggling twenty balls above my head. I catch one in my hand and with as much momentum as possible I throw it right back up. The ball goes high enough to give me time to catch and release the other nineteen balls before I have to catch the first ball just before it hits the ground. But the balls keep getting closer and closer to the floor, and before you know it, one hits the ground, and then they all hit the ground. Even a professional juggler can’t keep up with all the juggling in our lives. There are too many balls in the air.
Often the first ball we drop is our relationships. Being “busy” quickly becomes a barrier or excuse in the way of true community. I am busy, and many of my friends know that I am busy. When the only answer I ever give them in response to the question “How are you?” is, “Busy,” this communicates that I don’t have time for them. When I constantly say, “I’m busy,” I communicate to others that “I don’t need you right now.” Most of our friends pick up this subtle message and stay away.
What we often realize too late is that our “busy” answer is actually a choice not to engage in community. We choose to do other stuff over hanging out with our friends. If I continue to tell myself the lie that busy is good, I slowly enter into more of an isolated and a self-centered existence.
Visual Moment
Watch a reflection on our busy world:
www.moreorlessbook.com/#videos
DO YOU HAVE WANDERING EYES?
Let me paint you a picture. You attend a social gathering of some kind, and there are twenty-five people in the room. You connect with a friend, and the conversation is going great. You’re catching up beyond just the surface niceties. You’ve just begun to share something that you know your friend would love to hear when a new group of people enters the room. Your friend’s eyes wander to the new group, and you watch him both physically and mentally check out. How do you feel?
A moment before, you felt important and connected to this person. Suddenly you feel like you’ve moved down a couple of notches on the social-status totem pole. I’ve been the recipient of the wandering eyes before, but I’ve also been the person with wandering eyes—as I’m sure you have too. But I don’t want to be that person anymore.
Sometimes people are truly busy and need to focus on the task at hand. But if we are too busy to engage in relationships, we face a larger problem. When I respond and tell you I am too busy, too often I actually need your help. Often in those times when we most need a deep relationship, instead of pursuing that relationship, we embrace our task list and avoid the comfort and support that true friendship can offer. And the result of being extra busy, ironically, is loneliness and depression.
If you are one of the people who isn’t caught up in the “busy cycle,” please reach out to those who are caught in it. We need your example. We need your gentle insistence that community is good. That friendship is golden. That the things that need to get done can wait. And that you will love us no matter how much or how little we accomplish on our checklist. Most of all, we need you to teach us and remind us how to be fully present.
What does it mean to be present?
Presence is the gift my dad gave me when he attended every sports game I played, even when his schedule was busy. Presence is the friend who just sits next to you during a family funeral and doesn’t say a word. Presence is picking up the phone every time your close friend calls rather than letting it go to voice mail … again. Presence is not fast, big, or cheap. You cannot replace presence with someone or something else. Presence is an essential element that we all need and desire in our deepest relationships. It’s unspoken. It’s true. It’s the greatest encouragement anyone can ever receive or give. Presence is a physical expression of love in the midst of a culture that never stops—it is to stop and be with someone that matters.
Andre and our friend Allison Dudley talked at length about this one evening. It seems that the most interesting person in the room, and the person we often compete with for attention, isn’t a person at all—it’s a cell phone. How often have you been at a restaurant with friends and you see everyone looking down at their phones and updating the world on what they’re doing, as if it were that important. Or even in our homes, we gather for a fun night of games, and yet the phones are a constant distraction.
As they talked, Andre and Allison imagined an intentional experiment to combat this problem. They decided to proactively change the environment of our homes by placing a basket next to the front door and then inviting guests to place their mobile devices inside for the duration of their stay. Andre wrote about her intentions with this basket. “Please understand, this is in no way meant to be rude or even problematic; it is solely meant for you and me to purposefully engage in meaningful conversation. A place to feel safe with no interruptions. No side glances down to my phone to see that text. No phone calls that can somehow put a damper on the important issue at hand. Equally important, no using the device to disengage in moments of silence in the conversation.” Allison added one small touch to the basket that communicates so clearly their intention and challenge. On the front of the basket she wrote these words: “Be with the ones that are here.”
I want to be able to give time freely to the person standing in front of me. I want to do less searching and contribute more to the present moment. I want to be present with my family, with my friends, at work, and in my conversations. I want to be known as a person who is fully here, fully present. But this kind of presence begins by choosing to be less busy.
THE TIME INDICATOR
The way I choose to use my time is as much an indicator of who I am as the way I choose to spend my money. Time is money in the sense that it is a commodity we can give that offers value to people or things. As I’ve thought through the way that time influences my life, I’ve realized several things.
1. Those with Whom You Spend Your Time Will Strongly Influence What You Desire.
When I spend most of my time with people who have a greater amount of wealth or influence than I have, my desires begin to shift to match the values of that person. When I’m around someone who enjoys a greater cultural position than I do, I desire to become more financially successful. Conversely, when I spend the majority of my time with people who have less money or influence, my posture shifts dramatically. I begin to simplify the things I wear, the place I live, the car I drive, and where I eat my next meal. As a result, I try to simplify the view I have of myself in the context of the greater world. Whether we realize it or not, the people with whom we choose to spend our time play a significant role in the desires of our hearts.
Question: with whom are you spending your time, and how do those people influence what you want?
2. The Way You Spend Your Excess Time Shows What You Really Want.
What do you spend your free time doing, and why? How often do you stop to think about the way that you spend your time? What does that show you about what you really desire or who you hope to become?
Have you ever heard of the term daylighting?4 For you, daylighting might be a side project or personal hobby that you hope to make into a lifestyle someday, or perhaps it’s simply working a second job while keeping your primary job. Whatever you call it, there’s a good chance you’ve done this in some form or fashion. You do one thing to pay the bills, while your passion waits in the wings for your undivided attention. Often our free time is consumed with the desires of our calling. Our quest is to find a way to make more of our time dedicated to the pursuit of these dreams.
Question: how do you make time for the things you are passionate about?
3. The More Time You Give to Everything, the Less Focused You Are on What Matters.
Young leaders today are often referred to as the slash/slash generation. Nisha Gupta, in a piece for Hudson/Houston, explained it more fully:
We are … a group of people that define ourselves not by a single occupation, but by the diversity of our experiences, passions and networks. Instead of carving out an upward trajectory life path within one career, we seek to gather as many experiences as possible to contribute to our multi-faceted lifestyle. It’s more about creating a lifestyle than a life path. And the more multi-faceted the better.5
As interesting as this path might be, the pursuit of everything can result in a profession of nothing. Life experience gives us all great stories to share over a drink with new friends, but it can also result in exhaustion, loneliness, and the search for deeper meaning. We can’t do everything; we need to understand our own limitations and pursue our true purpose. When we try doing everything, we’re probably not doing any one thing very well.
GROUNDED
Gisele Nelson was our first employee at Plywood People, and she contributes to our projects in every way imaginable. She is one of those people who makes everything and everyone around her better, and she gets everything done. She prides herself on having fewer than fifteen emails in her inbox at all times, sometimes to a fault, which results in her working too much.
One day she realized that her commitment to doing too much resulted in personal unhappiness. Gisele is an introvert who allowed busyness to overtake her life.
“I was busy all day long and every night,” she shared. “I love time alone, it’s how I recharge, but the expectations I put on myself in order to cater to the people in my life that I love, a job I’m passionate about, and a church I believe in, left me overwhelmed and extremely unhappy.”6
She decided to make a drastic decision of personal discipline, to regain presence in her life, relationships, and quality of work. “So I grounded myself,” she said.
Remember when your parents grounded you? It was usually a kind of punishment for disobeying them. They forced you to stay home, and you weren’t allowed to play with your friends. Gisele intentionally chose a self-induced grounding to concentrate on slowing down her life. Life had become a consumption pattern, and it moved too fast to observe, critique, and discern. Gisele lives with intention, and she focuses with her friends. She works hard and gives every task 100 percent of her attention. But things had started to move out of sync with her best rhythm of life, and she decided she wanted to approach life differently.
Gisele created a set of guidelines for her grounding experience, simple parameters to accomplish her very own Enough Experiment. Her grounding consisted of only going out one night a week, eating healthy meals at home, exercising, and going to bed early. “I knew unless I made a real commitment to it, I would never actually make any changes. I prioritized my spirituality, and I learned some really valuable lessons along the way,” she said.7
Gisele learned five things from being grounded that she hopes to integrate into the balance of her life moving forward:
1. Discipline follows discipline. When we become disciplined in one area of our lives, discipline in other areas follow. Making a choice to celebrate the practice of self-discipline sets a standard of wisdom for other actions in our lives, and a progression of lifestyle emerges that reflects greater thought and practice. Making one careful choice often leads to another.
2. When we stop being busy, we start being honest. When we choose to live in solitude, this practice reveals anxieties that are often overshadowed by busyness. Taking time for silence forces us to confront our fears, unhealthy behaviors, and deepest sins. When we stay busy, we quickly lose the practice of self-evaluation. We become a blur to the internal need for growth and simply move on to the next activity. Being grounded is a time to intentionally pursue self-actualization and personal growth.
3. Solitude is not selfish. At times, in order to gain focus in life, we need to make drastic changes that others might not understand. Just because someone else doesn’t understand our priorities does not mean that those things shouldn’t be prioritized. If the busyness of your life includes a large number of people, it’s natural for some of them to take your choice for solitude personally. Choosing solitude is a choice to feed your soul, mind, and emotions as much as literal food and water are necessary for your physical health. It’s helpful to be prepared to respond to questions from others.
4. Intentionality makes relationships better. Learning the discipline of solitude causes intentionality in relationships. If time with others is carefully given, our time together is intentional, and we want every minute to count.
5. Quitting (for a little while) makes work better. No matter how many tasks pull for our attention, sometimes it’s better to put them away instead of just trudging through. Taking a break from tasks may be good. When I come back to them later, I’ll attack the tasks with better efficiency, vision, and fervor.
Gisele’s grounding of herself taught me an important lesson. There are two ways to look at time: you can define your time, or you can let others define time for you. If you want to determine how to use your time and what you will accomplish with it, then you have to proactively claim it. The only way to change your dilemma of time is to deliberately choose to live with a new clock.
ENOUGH TALK
Now is as good a time as any to stop being busy. Ground yourself for a day. Say no to all commitments, meetings, activities, and people. Find a place to go where you don’t know anyone. Put away your watch, smart phone, and computer. Breathe deeply. Drink in some natural beauty. Spend a day being instead of doing.
Bring a blank journal, and write about whatever comes to your mind. Take a slow walk. Take a long run. Go somewhere beautiful in your area that you always intended to see but never got around to seeing. Ground yourself, and see how you feel about time—during and after.
NOTES
1. “Cedar Bend,” Spring Arbor University, www.arbor.edu/Cedar-Bend/New-Student-Orientation/Student-Development-Learning/Index.aspx (page discontinued).
2. “Euchre,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euchre (last modified August 7, 2012).
3. Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 85.
4. Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Scott Belsky, “Encourage Daylighting,” 99U, http://99u.com/tips/5766/encourage-daylighting.
5. Nisha Gupta, “The Saatchi Y-Spot: Slash/Slash,” Hudson/Houston, June 11, 2010, www.hudsonhouston.com/2010/06/the-saatchi-y-spot-slashslash.
6. Gisele Nelson, interview with the author. Used with permission.
7. Nelson, interview with the author.