Time is an Illusion: the project pt. 2

okay so that time manipulation thing does in fact work

I truly believe time is an illusion. Last month I wrote about the concept of time which inspired an experiment I’m working on to manipulate it. Well, just my perception of it. Annoyed with feeling so limited and stuck day after day, I started this as an attempt to regain a bit of control over my life. It mostly consists of being extremely intentional about what I choose to give my attention to and being clear about the types of life experiences I want to have. Well, y’all, it’s been a few weeks and it went a lot different than I expected.

All the details about how to speed time up or slow it down are explained in part one linked below, but as a quick summary:

Time can appear to move faster or slower based on our perception of the moment during and after. I kept feeling like my job takes up all the time in my life leaving no time to myself. After digging into how we tend to perceive time, I came up with the following:

I’m thinking when I want to expand time, I can tap into my senses to read and collect as much information about the moment to stretch the container of time (what can I see, hear, taste, smell, etc). Or introduce more novelty in my life after work like visiting a new place or simply finding a different trail to walk. Watch a new show. Wear a new outfit. Practice deep breathing and mindfully take in as many of the nice moments as I can. 

And with contracting time I can do this by listening to familiar music and podcasts with familiar voices while at work and not watching the clock.

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Over the last few weeks, I noticed my relationship with time started to heal. Despite having some of the busiest days at work during the last 2 weeks of August, I somehow made more time for myself. Then September was the busiest I’ve been in a long time both during and after work, but I just barely hit the edge of burnout.

I didn’t mention it before, but I have a voice-recorded pep talk I made for myself that I listen to every morning before work and every afternoon after work. I recently changed the post-work pep talk to mention that my actual day starts when I log off—followed by asking “What do I want to do today?” That led to an amazing first two weeks of this experiment. I went for a nice walk almost every single day after work, finished two books, started two new articles, hung out by the pool, hung out with my sister, and published an article all during that time. This is unheard of for me because I log off around 6 pm and am heading to bed around 10-11 pm, so by the time I log off I would assume my day was already over. There was no room for mid-week hangouts or multiple days of chilling in the sun.

So a little novelty went a long way. I walked a few different paths when doing my afternoon walks, did my hair differently, and even ended up at a vendor fair at my local park. I did a few other things like napping on the clock and another day went to a bakery and a few garage sales on the way back home with my mom and sister on an “extended” lunch break.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

During work, I had moments of consciously thinking I wanted to speed up time so I could go outside, and I kid you not it felt like I was done with everything in an hour once I did the things that make time move a little faster. I’ve also been slowing down my mornings by being super mindful. So much so that I finished a book in the morning before work when I had 4 chapters left to go - before this project I would’ve assumed I didn’t have enough time for that and would opt to watch a YouTube video or social media scroll instead. Not that anything’s wrong with it, but I don’t think it’s healthy to keep counting out things I enjoy doing just because of “time”.

Music is the mathematics of time. A composer looks at a musical measure and says, “Shall I fill it with tiny little notes or make it feel elongated like a cat taking a big stretch?”

A composer knows that the same amount of time can be experienced in any number of ways - as something rushed and pressured, as something languid, as something expansive, or something crowded with tension.

Julia Cameron

The mind shift this experiment has given me so far is unreal. Of course I still have my gripes with time, and very often fall back into my original woes. But I'm so glad I decided to do this experiment because it's showing me how much intention matters. It's showing me how much control I've had all along. I'm seeing also it's not totally about control but is more about feeling like I have the space to enjoy life the way I want. I'm not just living to work and most moments have more potential for joy than I thought.

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It’s safe to say it works and I can’t wait to get back into it — because I kind of fell off these last two weeks.

I say this jokingly all the time but I think now it’s time I listen to the fact that I am my target audience. These articles are written for me to revisit when I’m no longer in writer mode. Two weeks ago my mindfulness started to wane and I lost consistency with finding novelty. Thankfully past me decided to make this a series so I’d be forced to revisit the topic someday. Past me was also wise for leaving the draft I wrote weeks ago about how well it was all going.

On top of this, I’ve been feeling a strong urge to slow down lately. In the next update, I want to talk more about how I’ve learned to just slow down in general, and how on the contrary doing so is making me feel like I have even more time. If you made it this far, I so so appreciate you taking the time to read this. I hope it helped you in some way 🤍