Time Flies...
Happy Wednesday all,
Sam here hoping you are all well this sunny (at time of writing) August day. Can you believe it's already August?! They say time flies when you are having fun, though in the grand scheme of things 2020 may not been as fun a year as we had expected it to be.
I've just finished a book by Harlan Coben (a lovely gift from SMASH regular Marta). As with all of his books, this one contains mystery, thrills and twists galore. During a particular thrilling scene the character reflects on the passage of time, which really got me thinking. A slightly edited version is below:
"They say time slows down at times of great danger, almost like Neo being able to see and dodge bullets in the Matrix, that was just an illusion, of course. Time is constant...."
"...this particular time illusion was caused by how we store memory. The richer and denser the memory of an event - for example, during moments when you are terrified - the longer you perceive that event lasted.
This phenomenon also explains why time seems to go faster as you age. When you're a child, experiences are new and so your memories are fresh and intense - so again time seems to slow down. As you grow older, especially when you are stuck in a routine, very few new or vibrant memories are being laid and so time flies by. That's why when a child looks back on summer, it seemed to last forever. For adults, it's barely a blink." Harlan Coben, Run Away (2019)
It's so true isn't it?! When I think back to the beginning of lockdown, I'd gone to stay with friends in Wales, Boris had announced a 3 weekly review and Ash and I went into manic, productive, slight panic mode to get SMASH online. In my head it was such a long time between lockdown being announced and our move to Zoom, but the gap between Boris closing the gyms to our first online workout was 2 days! We had also created and published 18 videos on our YouTube channel by the end of that week!
Those first 3 weeks felt like a lifetime - not necessarily in a bad way, there were ups and downs, trial, error and a lot of productivity. By the second 3 week review in April, we had found more of a routine and time started to regain it's usual momentum.
This reflection within the novel definitely resonates when we think about one of the 7 pillars of mindfulness as set out by Jon Kabat-Zinn, "beginners mind", known in Zen Buddhist practice as "Shoshin". It is the practice of seeing things with an open mind, as if from the eyes of a child. Letting go of everything we think we know in order to learn and grow from what we see around us. By disrupting our usual routine and reducing our preconceptions and expectations of how a day, an event, a workout, a meeting may go, we can really experience it and enjoy it like it was the first time!
Some ideas to try and "slow time" and incorporate Shoshin into our lives, include to trying to do something new or different each day. Change something, however small from your daily routine. Walk a different route to your workplace (if you aren't working from home). Sleep on the other side of the bed, sit in a different chair at the table, shop in a different supermarket. When reading about or listening to somebody talking about a subject you already know about, really take in what is being said, maybe there is something you can still learn.
Read more about our thoughts on beginners mind in our email from last September.
Each day is a blank canvas that we can use any way we wish. Time is constant, but only we can control how we use it. What will you do differently today?
Sam and Ash