Aging Capriciously

Father Time – the personification of time is usually a bearded man of advanced years, wearing a robe and sometimes carrying a scythe or an hourglass. Some say he is derived from the Greek God Saturn or Chronos. I would like to know why he is Father Time and not Mother Time. Why does he not have a female companion on his journeys? Have you ever noticed that many of the Greek virtues are feminine? However, time is always thought of as masculine. While we speak of Mother Earth, we are led by Father Time. Time is the progenitor of life. Without time nothing happens. Eggs would not develop; life would not spring forth to grow. Thus Father Time becomes a key parent to all life. Just as Mother Earth nurtures life, Father Time gives time to life and provides the key elements for life to grow. Life can be seen as requiring both the masculine and feminine elements. The female elements are embodied in nurturance and support. The masculine elements are action oriented driven by time and tasks.

What are the implications of this view of time as masculine? Who is Father Time a father to? What parental guidance or parental role does he play in our daily lives? One might ask what role you as a parent play with your children in respect to time. Do you get them up in the morning to go to school? Do you let them sleep in on the weekends? Do you teach them to be responsible for tasks being done on time? Do you make sure they share their time with others? Do you teach them that time is valuable and not to be wasted? Will they grow up knowing the value of time?What are the parental responsibilities that you transmit to your children in respect to time? What do your expectations teach your children about time? What should you be teaching your children about time?

“Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.” This was a poem that my first wife found when we were just married. I loved the poem and in some sense it embodied what I felt married life should be about. There were many times during our marriage when I thought about this poem. We ended in divorce after 16 years. I was never sure why the marriage ended. We fought, loved, laughed and suffered through ups and downs with money but none of these things ended the marriage. I once added up all my theories on why the marriage ended and I came up with 32 theories. Many years later, I came up with a new theory and decided that all the old theories are bunk. For years we saw each other and I considered my former wife a friend. However, we have since drifted apart and for perhaps the same unfathomable reasons that the marriage failed, the friendship has since faded away.

I am left with the poem and while I still think about it a great deal, it now is more related to my second marriage and the hopes and dreams I have for it. What a wonderful thought that we can share life together with another person and expect that the best of life is still to come. I am facing old age and looking towards the last 20 years of my life. Yet, I can more easily believe the words of this poem today then when I was young. I now realize that relationships are not made in heaven, they are made on earth. Relationships are like flowers and gardens. They must be nurtured and pampered and tended daily with loving care. There will be weeds and dry days and floods and tornados. Rabbits and other critters will intrude on your garden and eat your flowers. A garden is not fixed in stone. Each year requires renewed effort to bring out the best in it. Our relationships are a lot like gardens. If you continue working on your relationships, they will only get better and better. If you think that your garden will take care of itself and never need replanting or watering, you will soon find that your garden is nothing but weeds and stones.

Do you have faith that your relationships with your friends and loved ones can be better or do you just take them for granted? Do you believe that your life will get better and better if you keep improving it each day? Do you think your life might also be like a garden? What could you do to improve your relationships or your life today? What challenges could you take today to make your life more interesting or more fun? What parts of your relationships with your loved ones need watering or replanting? What weeds do you need to remove in your relationships?

Every Friday I look forward to a Friday night fish fry. Ever since I was a little kid, Friday night meant fish. Of course, this was because I grew up in an Italian Catholic family and we could not eat meat on Friday. One might think I would grow up to hate fish but instead I have become so fond of fish that I eat all kinds of fish, cephalapods, crusteaceans, mollusks and other assorted phylum that swim and paddle in the lakes, oceans and waters covering the earth. I have never met a fish I did not like. Too fishy, has no place in my vocabulary. It is like saying beef is too steaky or ham is too porky.

It seems when we grow up, we either radically reject the traditions of our childhood or we embrace them with a passion that is beyond rational thought. Many people are surprised at my passion for fish. However, I have found other “passions” both embraced and rejected that I attribute to my growing up. Sometimes, when we do not recognize the history or etiology of our passions, they can rule and perhaps ruin our pleasure in life. Such as when we say “I always do it this way.” We can follow well established paths that can become ruts that blind us to new opportunities and new pleasures in life. Many times we can be chained by traditions but traditions are generally more visible and hence we are aware of them. Being aware gives us more opportunity to change our traditions if we so desire. However, subtle passions that grew from childhood are more deeply engrained and more difficult to change.

How often have you recognized a “Rule” or “Habit” that you follow because that was what you learned when you were growing up. “Haste makes waste.” “A stitch in time saves nine.” “The early bird catches the worm.” Many of these kinds of advice are helpful if not carried to extremes. The problem is they can become habits in our lives that become counterproductive because we take them to extremes. Thus we follow patterns of behavior that are rigid and inflexible. We become the character of our past rather the a character that is in process and shaped by the present.

Today, take a minute to reflect on the habits, manners and beliefs that guide your life. Which of these are helpful. Which are keeping you from moving forward in your life? How many of these spring from the rules and obligations of your childhood? Which of these will you change?

I only wish I had the time to help. The other morning I was in a coffee shop in Arizona City. This is a local hangout place for philosophers, world affairs experts and low-cost Starbuck’s wannabees. The group will range from right-wing to left-wing depending on the time of the morning. The Curve’s group come in at about 9:30 so the MEN try to be out there by then. No sense discussing politics, sports and world solutions with a bunch of women. This morning my time was bordering between mens time and womens time. Thus, there was a blending of both sexes. One of the world experts and philosophers noted a guy outside who was working his way down the medium strip picking what appeared to be “weeds.” “Whats that guy doing?” “Who is he.” “Does he think he can get all the weeds in town.” “Must be nice to have nothing to do.” I mean look at us in the coffee shop, we are solving the world’s political problems and selecting the best coachs and players for all the NFL, NBA and other professional sports leaques. Why doesn’t he join us and do something useful?

Well after much debate, one of the women in the shop went out to ask him what he was doing. She talked to him about five minutes and returned. All weighty and important world discussions ceased as we anxiously awaited this strange man’s mission and goals in life. I must admit, I was thinking he was doing some kind of good deed that only the retired or indigent have time to do. I was surprised to find that he was gainfully employed, but he donated one hour a week of his time to help make the community a nicer place to live. I had expected that he would be some “do gooder retiree” with too much time on his hands. My rationale for not doing something like this has always been “I don’t have the time.” I was embarrassed to think that someone, anyone of us, could simply go out and pick weeds one hour per week. Do I have one hour per week to pick weeds? I am spending an hour at least three times per week solving the world’s problems with my fellow philosophers. The answer is clearly yes. Funny, I never thought about it. I assumed you either worked and did paid activity or you were retired and did “free” stuff for the world and society. Given that I had no immediate plans to retire, the free stuff did not seem like to much of an option.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I do 12 to 16 hours of work per week pro bono for a business development group locally. I work with small start up companies to help them develop their business plan and marketing strategies. I do not get paid for this and I think it is worthwhile, but it is or seems very different from simply going down the street to pick weeks. One seems professional and important, the other seems mundane. Yet, many of us would rather have more beauty in our lives and perhaps less business.

What if you and I simply gave one hour per week of community service? What if more of us were visible in our community instead of living on our decks or behind our stone walls and increasingly gated communities? This strange man picking weeds has inspired me to go beyond my limits. I now see a big gray area beyond work and retirement. Only it really is not gray, it is quite blue and green.

Have you ever written your eulogy? A eulogy is a formal memorial speech delivered when someone dies and usually at their funeral. We have all been to a funeral where we were very moved by the oration that a friend, family member or pastor gave. Most of the time, these were written after the person died. Sometimes they hit the mark and really describe the person and other times not as well. What someone would say about us might not be what we would want to say ourselves. Unfortunately, there is no coming back after the fact to write our own eulogy. Fortunately, you can write one now.

Why would anyone want to write their own eulogy you might ask? Not because you will be better able to tell the truth about yourself; though this would be a pleasant change from the usual glowing eulogies. The answer is because it can help you to see what is most important in your life. It will help you to address the question of whether you are really working towards what is important. When you are dead and buried will you be remembered for what you were trying to accomplish in life? Perhaps not! But perhaps thinking about what you would like to be remembered for now can help focus you on your goal and the real purpose of your life.

This is a common exercise in many human relations classes. It is very simple. Just imagine that you are at your own funeral. The speaker is up on the podium getting ready to talk about you to the assemblage of friends and families. What would you like that person to say about you? What activities, events, goals and aspirations do you want to be remembered for? Write them all down. You have now written your own eulogy.

Now for the hard part! Looking over your eulogy, how does it sound? Is it realistic? Do you think someone would really say that about you now? Why or why not? What would you have to change in your life to make your eulogy real? How much time do you have to change your life around? It is never to late too start!

Process time is a common term in business. When I first started doing TQM (Total Quality Management) consulting, it became very important to start thinking of everything in business as a process. The key to process consulting was to believe that all processes could be improved if they were first understood. Using TQM methods, we could understand our organizational processes and continuously improve them thereby lowering costs, improving productivity and increasing customer satisfaction. The “atom” of business was the “process” and to understand the business, you had to understand the core processes. The business DNA lay in the unraveling of the process steps and metrics.

I soon came to realize that these same concepts could be used to improve my personal and family life. I began to see that everything we do in life is a process and that by better understanding the key processes that affect my life, I could also continuously improve my family and personal life. There are communication processes, argument resolution processes, financial processes, vacation time processes, family together time processes, personal growth processes, child rearing processes, retirement processes and many others. The more I understand them and how they can be continually improved, the better my life is. Indeed, by applying the same principles to may life that make a business successful, I have learned to improve my personal life. Whatever affects my personal life affects my business life and vice- versa.

The task of “process understanding” is not an easy one. In fact, it is never ending. There is always more to be understood when studying a process. The major value is that you never have to be perfect. The more you understand the better things will become. We spend all of our lives engaged in process time activities. It only makes sense to look at what we are doing and try to find a better way to do it. What key processes affect your life? Which of these are you improving and which of these are you ignoring? Why are you ignoring them? What processes could you do more work on to improve? How could you start? Would it make a difference in your life? Then why not start now? Who could help you get started?

Downtime! How that one word strikes joy in our hearts. Historically, it is derived from a machine or system that is no longer up and running. Today, it means that your computer system at work has crashed and you cannot get anything done. When IT systems crash today, we are all in a quandary with what to do during downtime. Nevertheless, there is real joy during periods of enforced downtime.

The opposite of downtime is uptime. When was the last time you heard anybody excited about uptime? As in, “boy, I hope we can have more uptime today!” Not very likely! Uptime is taken for granted since uptime is when things are running normal and we are expected to be creative, productive and industrious. We cannot goof off during uptime since the machines and computers are running and all systems are set on go. Thus, we go, go, go. We become like machines ourselves except we cannot turn off between 9-5 unless we have lunch or a scheduled break. Downtime gives us a brief but unexpected break from our daily tedium.

We may all need more downtime in our lives. However, downtime is not promoted as a value or as something to aspire to. Have you ever heard of anyone negotiating downtime in their contract? Have you ever heard of a Union arguing for more downtime? Downtime is regarded as the enemy of productivity. Vacations, holidays, time off, sick days are all a form of “planned downtime.” However, many of us are too busy to take “planned downtime.” Some of us run and run until stress or illness forces downtime. The body takes over and says “enough is enough.” We all know people who never take breaks or who seem to always be on the go. Then the day comes when their system crashes and illness or stress puts them in bed or the hospital. Many of us do not take good care of ourselves to prevent stress and thus avoid “system downtime.”

Do you ever plan your own downtime or do you wait until either you or your computer crashes? What stops you from taking a needed rest or unenforced period of downtime? Are you really so essential to the job or activity that you cannot take a break? Can the world live without you for a day or so? Stress is a major cause of illness and most of us have too much in our lives. Perhaps if you plan your own downtime today you can look forward to your uptime tomorrow.

Digital versus Analog time. Have you ever thought that the world could be divided into two kinds of information? Analog is where the information is a continuous flow. Examples are the old time 33 1/3 LP records. Now we have digital music which is numerically encoded. The old time watches with a sweep hand are another example of analog time while today they are more of a fashion item and many of us wear digital watches. Even these are being replaced by those who use cell phones for their time needs. Movies are now becoming digitized where they have been primarily analog. Of course, computers are the essence of digitization.

Digitization is remaking our world. Once analog signals ruled the information world, today we are living in a digital world where information flow is ruled by numbers. Does it make any difference? Some people argue that the old type of records had better fidelity than the new digital records. Many researchers find that qualitative information (interviews, focus groups) is more useful than the quantitative information found in surveys, Gallup Polls and other rating systems. There are pro’s and con’s to each system but there is little doubt that digital signals are replacing analog signals in our emerging global interconnected marketplace.

In terms of personal time, are you a digital or an analog person? Do you see the world broken into discrete increments of time, like bytes and bits? Or, do you see the world as a continuous stream of activities and events? If you are a digital time person, how do you think your view would be changed today if you thought like an analog person? Vice versa, if you are an analog person, how do you think the world would look today to you if you thought like a digital person? Can you switch perspectives or do you find it impossible to think in such a contrary manner? How do you think your children see the world? Do they see it as a continuous flow or as a series of discrete events? Can you see any difference it makes it how we view the world?

Late-Late-Late! We all know people who are late for everything. Late to events, late to work, and some would joke, even late to their own funerals. It is easy to find excuses for being late and we could each name a dozen “excuses.” People who are chronically late would call these reasons and not excuses. To those of us who make a point or habit of being on time, it is very difficult to tolerate the lateness of others. We see it as inconsiderate, rude and thoughtless. We see it as preventable with some advance planning and foresight. Nevertheless, we don’t seem to be decreasing incidents of lateness in the world or changing those who are chronically late.

Maybe, those of us who are chronically on time are the real problem. Was the world really meant to be run by a clock? Maybe the punctual have capitulated while the “latecomers” are the real rebels. Fighting against the dictates of the almighty clock and the culture of promptness ushered in by our advanced industrial and digital society. Perhaps, the “latecomers’ are living time in a more natural manner where life is based on cycles and not on a clock. The punctual person is driven by the time of day and the time designated by a tacit contract. The meeting will start at 8 AM. Be there or be late. The latecomer is driven by their own necessities and by an inner clock: “It is still dark out;”
“I am too tired to get up yet;” “So what if I come late, it’s not the end of the world;” “I have more important priorities;” or “I don’t feel like rushing.” The punctual person is horrified by these excuses: “What, I broke my neck to get here on time and the meeting was canceled.”

Life is not fair to the punctual person. But what do we tell our kids about the fairness of life? Do you suppose hell is a place where everyone must be on time or suffer severe punishments? Hard to imagine what could already be worse than hell. What happens to the late comers in hell then? What about the punctual? Are the places in heaven guaranteed only for the punctual? Can you be punctual and still go to hell?

How obsessed are you with being on time? Is there a place in your life for “time cycles” and not clock time? What if you are late? What difference will it make? Can you be late and not feel guilty? What does it mean to walk a line between obsessive punctuality and perpetual lateness? Does anyone really care if you are late or on time?

Perceived time is what time feels like for us on a personal level. It has nothing to do with what the clock says. My “Perceived Flow of Time” changes depending on what I am going to do and when I do it. It is a mental state regarding the flow of time in our individual lives. Perceived time can be slow or fast depending on our circumstances and what we are doing. For example, I seem to need at least eight hours of sleep during the workweek, however on the weekends, I am up about two hours earlier than during the workweek and I am anxious and ready to go. I don’t need as much time to sleep and I feel full of energy on less sleep. This is a mental message being sent by my brain to my body. I perceive my world of time differently on the weekend than I do during the week. This perception enables me to do more with less. I know that it is due to my expectations but it is interesting to see the extra energy I have when the time is all mine and I do not have one commitment and appointment after another. Weekends can fly by while weeks pass much more slowly.

My flow of time during the week is also very different from event to event. Time seems to drag by during some tasks and fly by during others. When I have to go out and run during the cold Minnesota winter, the minutes and miles seem to take much more effort and time then during the late spring and early fall. When I am starting a new project and unsure about what to do, the time seems to flow by very slowly. Conversely, when I am really having fun with a task or really enjoying myself, time seems to pass in a flicker of thought.

Have you ever noticed how your perception of time changes depending on what you are doing and whom you are doing it with? Watch your time today. Don’t judge it or criticize it but just observe it. How does your flow of time seem to change for you? How is it different for you during the workweek and during the weekend? Does it change much? What do you think changes the flow of time for you? Are you satisfied with how time flows in your life? What would you like to change about it? What would you like to remain the same? Change your thoughts about time and you change the flow of time.