I was a huge ZenHabits fan back in high school when he was more habits and less zen. I don’t really follow it these days, but I just happened upon this recent post and found it resonated a lot.
Something I forget a lot, and have to remind myself about a lot: I’m not on my way somewhere.
This moment isn’t just a stepping stone to get to another place. It’s the destination. I’m already here.
I’m not on my way to a more important moment. This current moment is the most important moment.
I’m familiar with the experience of wanting time to move faster because some future event seems better than the present… and I’ve been trying for awhile to figure out how much sense that actually makes.
Why might you want time to move faster?
I mean, the short answer is that the future seems better than the present. This seems to apply really broadly: students who dislike school find themselves wishing they could just fast-forward a few years. On the other end of the spectrum, someone being tortured would also like to fast-forward out of the experience. (This post is aimed towards the boredom thing, not the torture thing.)
But you can’t fast-forward. Especially not in acute situations where you’re already in them. Outside of that, well, you can distract yourself, or even intoxicate yourself, such that you don’t really notice what’s going on as time passes. You can even simply sleep longer—the classic technique known as “make Santa come sooner”.
But if I’m sitting in a boring meeting or meal, I basically can’t fast-forward. And yet I want to. Why?
In particular, why is it associated with such discomfort?
