Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Enough Time

Shoreline Highway, Marin Headlands, California, USA

October 28, 2010

This essay, Enough Time, is the third in the septology Time:

in that order.

I am indebted to the source of Mission Control who inspired this conversation.

This conversation isn't about magically acquiring more than the traditional twenty fours hours in every day so at last there's enough time to do everything there is to do. Neither is this conversation about making the time to do the things you want to do by taking time away from things which aren't as important - this isn't a conversation about prioritizing a "to do" list. Neither is this a conversation about time management. There's a veritable plethora of perfectly good time management workshops, seminars, courses, and books already available. I'm not aspiring to create another one of them.

Rather, what this conversation is is a way of looking at the availability of time. Specifically, it's a way of looking at the recurring concern "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time" which, if you tell the truth about it, is what time almost always looks like. It's a way of looking at how we look at this recurring concern. More to the point, it's a way of looking at how we don't look at this recurring concern - very Zen, very revealing. Interimly what this conversation is is a valuable way of reassessing the recurring concern "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time.". Ultimately what this conversation is is a powerful way of vanquishing this recurring concern as a racket.

I assert the racket "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time" is patently silly. There's enough time. You've got enough time. You've always got enough time. There's as much time now as there ever is. There's as much time now as there's always been. In fact, there's only as much time as there is now. There's never been any more time than there is now. There's never been any less time than there is now.

<aside>

Ideas about what happens with time in curved space and what happens with time when traveling faster than the speed of light, while interesting, don't impact the racket "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time" for most ordinary human beings I know who'll never see curved space or travel faster than the speed of light.

<un-aside>

When I'm concerned there's not enough time (that is to say when I'm running a racket "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time"), if I tell the truth about it, I'm really not being responsible for what I'm doing. Actually its way more subtle than that. It's when I'm running that racket, I'm really not being responsible for what I'm not doing. Being responsible for what I'm doing is an obvious topic for an entry level conversation about being responsible. However, being responsible for what I'm not doing is profound. It's a topic which only occurs in an adult, senior conversation about being responsible.

Here's an adult, senior conversation about being responsible: regarding anything there is for me to do, I'm in one of three mutually exclusive states:

1)	I'm not doing it.
2)	I'm never doing it.
3)	I'm doing it.

Given the racket "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time", consider this:

1)	If I'm not doing it, it's not because "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time". It's because I'm not doing it.
2)	If I'm never doing it, it's not because "There's not enough time" / "I don't have enough time". It's because I'm never doing it.

Actually those two are secondary. What's primary is this:

3)	If I'm doing it, it's not because "There's enough time" / "I have enough time". It's because I'm doing it.

Gee! I hope you get this. Really!

Communication Promise

E-Mail | Home

Permission