Work life balance is a popular term used for the idea that we need to find time for both work and other aspects of life. Despite our intelligence and our best intentions, we struggle to identify the things that actually matter. We’re always striving for balance, but there never seems to be enough time. Are we wasting our ‘time’, looking for something that doesn’t exist?
The illusion of time.
We see time as an endless succession of moments. A timeline of good, bad, past, present, and future moments. Everything is subject to time, but According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion that only exists only in our minds.
How can we deny the reality of time?
It takes time to do anything. I needed time to write this blog. You need time to continue reading this blog… It doesn’t matter how much our lives are governed by the same seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks, regardless of where we live on the globe, time will never be absolute. Time is relative and our perception of time is actually speeding up, thanks to the over-abundance of technology in our lives.
The technology in our lives (social media) also prevents us from being balanced. Mindless scrolling can cause us to lose track of ‘time’ and ‘reality’. We spend our realities comparing our time, reliving our past, anticipating our future… We need to slow our scroll. The more we are focused on the illusions of time (the past & future)—the more we miss the Now.
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”― Eckhart Tolle
Why do we focus so much on the past and the future? To feed our ego. The stronger our ego, the more time takes over our life until almost every thought we think is then concerned with the past or future instead of the present. Our sense of self (ego) depends on the past for our identity and the future for its fulfillment.
So how do we let go of the ego?
- Stop blaming someone or something for our dissatisfactions.
- Stop focusing on the hundred things that we could have done differently, or may have to do at some future time.
- Focus on the one thing that we can do now.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan (we love planning)! Planning might just be the only thing we can do now. Just make sure we aren’t re-playing “mental movies” that keep us living in the illusion of time (past or present).
This concept of being present isn’t new. You can find this philosophy explored by the likes of Zoroaster, Laozi, Mahavira, Gautama Buddha, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Jesus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Hafez, Linji Yixuan, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Carl Jung… in texts such as the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist texts, the Old Testament, the New Testament.
There are many new world applications of this school of thought as well. Many many ‘nows’ ago, when I was in high school, I worked my first job for McDonalds. During my management training, there was a section on leadership. It was titled ‘Be Here Now’. The lesson was simple, be conscious in the present moment. The simple mantra felt cheesy for me as a 16year old, and quite off-brand for the fast food Goliath, but whoever developed their management training program was woke AF and I bought into it.
Fun Fact: Colleges Ontario officials reviewed the content of McDonald’s management training, ultimately concluding that the various elements (leadership, communication skills, managing and leading teams) were essentially equivalent to a first-year business program. Under the agreement, Ontario colleges recognize that a McDonald’s employee with at least two of four company courses required to become a manager has earned the equivalent of first-year courses in a two- or three-year business diploma. As a result, the manager-in-training could apply to a college and enter a business program in second-year, potentially saving up to $4,500 in tuition.
The idea is timeless;
In order to make time, find balance, and be happy, we must choose to live in the present.
This one decision changes our entire perception of reality. We must continue to make this decision. Again, again, and again. We must avoid living as though some other time (past or future) is more important than the present one, because now is the only time we have.