Can We Be At Peace With Time

so you came to

listen to my speech that’s very nice

thank you i want to give you a little

gift to start with

i want to offer you some time

20 seconds to be exact and during those

20 seconds

you can do whatever you want you can

check your phone

you can look around you wait for me to

start my speech

feel free to use it as you want ready

let’s start

all right i hope you enjoyed it i will

ask you one more thing before i start is

please remember what you did during

those 20 seconds

let’s get started do you feel at peace

with time

maybe a simple question for some but a

very difficult question for most

so let me go with a more simple one

what day is it today friday

i hope this one everybody got it but is

it

that simple you know a few days ago i

was on the phone with one of my friends

who had been working from home since the

pandemic started

and we were making plans to meet each

other and suddenly my friend was like

on thursday and sorry what you mean on

thursday today is thursday

i was like no no no no today is tuesday

you know don’t worry today is tuesday

what happened is that my friend who had

been working remotely

for the past few months he was lost to

his time

for him days felt like weeks

weeks felt like days and this happened

despite having time displayed virtually

everywhere around him

on his phone on his tv even on his

fridge

and the last time i checked the

definition of time has not changed

recently

once a count is still defined as 9

billion

something period of the radiation of the

cesium 100 statistry

now what happened is that in the past

few months our perception of time has

been

radically challenged most of us had to

face

significant changes in our daily life in

our routine

in those markers of time and as a result

we lost our sense of time

but did we really lost it maybe we just

came back to a more

original a more primitive sense of time

inside us

after all for centuries time was simply

the expression of nature

days and nights summer and winter

time was the daily activities

the cosmic processes the cyclic

repetition of events

fire burns woods irremediably

in the same way time consumes our body

irremediably

that was the view for our ancestor and

for sure

some of the most educated people had a

concept

of historical time but for the majority

time was essentially a physical process

closer to today an invention came to

change that perception

the train and in its country of origin

britain in the early 19th century you

have to imagine that there was a hundred

of different time zones

coventry time being one minute and 30

seconds ahead

of birmingham time itself 14 minutes

behind greenwich time

can you imagine making a trained

timetable at that time

it was simply a nightmare and as a

result

time had to become this synchronization

tool

time became a dimension with very clear

position in it

later on during the industrial

revolution

capitalism started to assign value to a

unit of time

time produces value

then you know you should organize it

optimize it rationalize it

with this emerge time management

consulting productivity tools and so on

finally time became money maybe you knew

all of this

you knew all of those elusive aspects of

time

but did you ever get the chance to

experience it

and i think what happened in the last

few months gave us that very rare chance

whether during a lockdown during a two

weeks current team at home

suddenly time does not have to be that

precious resource that we have to

manage save use wisely

time does not even have to be a

synchronization tool

time can be what you want and you can

make time the way you want

well it’s not that simple

i do wish we would have that super power

of shaping our time perception

as we see fit but there is something at

play here

our deep and personal time orientation

preference so for instance my friend who

was working from home

he would wake up at 2 a.m start to work

get very lost

and have this very disturbed pattern of

life while some other

could easily manage a more regular

pattern of life

and for sure part of this is their own

constraint

but part of this is very much their own

preference

so what do i mean by preference

we all have different personality traits

so for instance here in this room some

of us will be more

extrovert liking to meeting new people

while some other can be more introvert

time orientation preference can be

understand as

one of our trait of personality

and so that means some of us here in

this room

see time as this flow moving forward

inevitably precisely with events taking

place successively

but some other can see time as something

intangible

surrounding us like air events happening

here

there or simultaneously and there is a

name for this

polychronicity this term was coined by

an american anthropologist

eduard hall in the 60s and

edward hall would be speaking about

polychronic culture

he would see this very much as a

cultural aspect

but the most recent research tends to

show that it’s very much an

individual preference and so

we can also wear the scale and on that

scale

on one side you would find the

polygraphs

those who value multitasking who like to

juggle with tasks

who go with the flow who hate planning

those people would say things like i

live

for the moment but on that other extreme

of that scale you would find the

monochromes

those who feel the absolute necessity of

having

every minute of their life planned and

skilled in advance

those who cannot support the idea of not

knowing what they will do tomorrow

and so here is where we can do something

about

during this uncharted territory of our

epoch

but for this you need to understand

where you stand

on that scale there is actually many

tests

out there to measure your polychronicity

attitude

but i would argue you don’t need those

do you remember the little gift i gave

you at the beginning of the talk

what did you do during those 20 seconds

did you jump on your phone that would

maybe put you more towards the polygram

site

did you wait for me to start my speech

that might

put you more on the monochrome side but

more importantly

what was your desire at that time

did you wish to jump on your phone but

you didn’t do it because people were

looking at you

your phone were out of battery that

desire

that wish put you to the polygram site

so with this in mind we can practice a

bit of what i would call

time mindfulness the idea is being

mindful about your feelings

towards time the last time you had to

multitask juggle with multiple things at

the same time

how did you feel about it

did you feel okay did you enjoy it did

you feel very excited about it

those degree put you more and more

towards the polygram’s end

on the other hand if you were not okay

with it

feeling uncomfortable hated it really

really want to do everything you can to

not have to multitask again

that is putting progressively towards

the monocron’s end

so what can you do once you understand

this once you understand where you are

on that scale

things become very simple after all just

align

your action to your preferences

you hate planning just throw away that

cannondale

you actually feel the need of planning

there is a thousand of apps on your

phone that can help you for that

i could stop here but i think we can all

feel that it’s

slightly more complex than this i want

to invite you to look at something here

this is the result of a personality test

i took a couple of years ago

and more specifically it’s my

extraversion level

and if we zoom we can see that i’m

definitely leaning towards the introvert

site

and you can check but public speaking

does not rank

very high in the list of preference for

an introvert

it is fairly stressful

very uncomfortable and yet here i am

putting myself through that ordeal of

public speaking

and on the top of that i’m advising you

to align your action to your preference

you could as well make the conclusion

that i’m simply a big fraud here

that would be fair but i think there is

something more to see here

once you understand where you stand on

that scale i was sharing before

it’s important to also see that we

cannot always

align our action to your preference

sometimes we do have to do things that

goes against

our own preference whatever your

motivation is

we have to acknowledge the gap

between the action we take in our own

preference being mindful of the

difficulty that we all

face of walking through that gap

and pushing ourselves beyond our own

preferences

being mindful about is for ourselves but

as well for the others

whether it’s that polygrams who hate

planning

but has to organize something for work

for his own order day

or for that monograms who actually

has this very deep need of having

everything organized in advance and who

suddenly

needs to go with the flow have to make

last minute change and feel deeply

uncomfortable about it

so let me ask you again do you feel at

peace with time

remember that time is not defined

by our surrounding circumstances

not defined by the dictate of the

society

time is defined only by your own

preference

and yes that means here for each of us

time is different everyone has a

different definition of time

which also means in order to do things

together we do have to agree

compromise on a command definition of

time

but that should not prevent us to be

mindful

of the gap we have to walk to

perform actions towards this compromise

this agreed action of

definition of time and that should not

also prevent us to remember that

there is so many other moment in life

where you can absolutely enjoy

time the way you like it the way you

prefer it

thank you