To quote the Chambers Brothers, “Time Has Come Today.” I have always liked that song, even if I was about 12 when it was released, and even if I could not relate to it at that time. Most likely, I would have needed a dose of Timothy Leary to “get it” anyway. Now fifty-some years later it is beginning to weigh heavily on my mind.
Time Has Come Today is a call to action. When it was released it was about social justice and ending the Vietnam War. In a broader, world wide context the song is just as, or maybe even more, appropriate today than when it was first written, but that is not why I am writing about it now.
At 66, I am staring down the gun barrel of my own mortality. Well not really, but I am reaching the age where my QTR, or quality time remaining, is rapidly diminishing, leaving me with a host of long ignored and perpetually postponed life decisions. Decisions like how do I want to spend the quality time I have remaining. Like what will make me happy. Like what will make me feel good. Like what will keep me healthy. Like… Like…. Like…. Like…. While the questions are easy to pose, the answers are elusive, or, more likely, obscure.
I am a very fortunate guy. Despite my generally grumpy, curmudgeon-like outlook on life, I am actually pretty happy. Thankfully, I do not have a host of major issues to deal with. I have a great family. I love the work I do. I enjoy pursuing healthful activities. I enjoy my friends. My body and mind are functional. I do not have financial stress. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have very little free time to spend on anything else. Which leads me right back to the question of the day: If I had free time, what would I want to do with it? In other words, how do I want to spend my QTR. Frankly, I have no idea.
Sporadically, in life we face times like these. Times that are watersheds in retrospect. Times where big decisions are made. From birth to our late teens, we have very few such decisions to make. Then all of a sudden, we have to pick, and get accepted by, a college. That was pretty easy for me, as it was UCLA or junior college. Even worse, we have to pick a major. For me, that was a simple choice, as I hated to read and—ironically—write when I entered college. Thus, it was easy to choose a major like mathematics. A paltry four or so years later, we have to pick a career or decide to stay in school. Again, that was pretty easy for me, as I opted to get an advanced degree. But unless we are lucky enough to be born with a significant trust and gobs of family money—which I wasn’t—sooner or later we have to pick a career, go to work and earn a living. Oh, yeah, we also have to decide if we want a spouse and family. But once those big choices are made, we generally have a long time to just stay the course, with periodic mid-course corrections. Until the specter of QTR looms large. Then it is time for the biggest life decision of all.
So here I sit, writing this and mulling over my life and how I want to spend what is left of it. So far, I have really enjoyed my day. I was up at the butt-crack of dawn because I don’t really need much sleep. I worked while it was still dark. I threw balls to Jake, the dog, after it got lighter, which is why at 12 years old he is still a spry guy. I did my 45 minute Peloton Power Zone ride, getting my heart rate into zone 4 and schvitzing enough to leave a puddle under the bike. I fed and walked Jake. I ate. I worked. I did my weekly personal banking and credit card reconciliations. I helped Pam unload the groceries. And I sat down to write this. All before lunch. All in all a pretty normal Saturday for me. And that is the problem.
I have been on the treadmill, literally and figuratively, of life for quite some time. It feels normal for me to do some work almost every day of the week—at all hours. Frankly, it feels good to be mentally engaged 24/7. It gives me purpose. It fills up my time. I am never bored—unless I have nothing on which to work. Again, that is the problem.
Sometimes I wonder if I am a workaholic. I know I have compulsive personality disorder in my genes, as my mom was a compulsive gambler. No doubt I enjoy a routine and find it hard to change it. Work enables me to stay in my rut. In the past when I have pondered this, I would re-read the definition of workaholic, and I realize that I did not work to avoid pressing or emotional issues. I worked because I had too much to do. Or so I told myself then. But more and more I am coming to understand that I am so inured, and that my soul has become so psychedelicized, to working long hours that I have accepted them as being the norm, or the price I pay for loving what I do, with the result being that I have suppressed my desires to do other things. Covid only made the situation easier to ignore, as there was not much else to do anyway. But now as we are beginning to open up and do more things and as my QTR continues to diminish, the true cost of those hours has become more apparent. But is it high enough to cause me to act? I think it is.
Which brings me back to Time Has Come Today, and its call to action. I need to change my life now. I need to work less. Not because I have a pressing need immediately, but because I will never know if I have a need until it is too late if I don’t. I have to give myself time before I have any clue as to how I want to use it if I ever want to have the time to use it differently. In some respects it is like creating the space to build a field of dreams, but that is a topic for another post.