Think you don't have time to meditate? Read this!
Time is one of the biggest barriers to people learning to meditate. Often, when I tell people I teach meditation, they respond with, ‘I’d love to meditate, I just don’t have the time’. Even when people come to learn the technique, one of their biggest concerns is ‘how will I actually make time for this every day?’
At a time when most people are ‘busier than ever’, time is an interesting thing to ponder. First, let’s look at the sentence I don’t have time to meditate. Notice the use of the word ‘have’, as if time were something we can possess, like an object or a skill. Our little intellectual minds have devised very complex ways of managing the passing of life events by creating the system of time. We have seconds, minutes, days, months and years to bring structure to our moment-by-moment experience of life as it’s happening, and this puts it in a relatable and convenient framework. The problem is, it also renders time into something that can be systematised, and therefore something we can ‘have’, when in fact, there is no such thing as time. There is only the eternal now, happening, you guessed it, right now. All things, past, present and future are happening right now, simultaneously (a mind-bending thing to consider), not sequentially as we like to think. What this means then, is that you ‘have’ time, and you simultaneously ‘have’ no time. That is to say, there’s no telling how long we have or haven’t got. Depending on how you look at things, this can be incredibly depressing, or open up endless possibilities!
That same phrase also infers that we have been alotted a certain quantity of time, and that unfortunately that quota has already been reached by doing other things. Though we absolutely do things in our days that are important, relevant and necessary, would you say that all things you are doing are important, relevant and necessary? Or is there some fluff or filler in between? Are there even certain times when this fluff actually takes up a significant amount of time, maybe even a whole day? It’s an interesting thing to ponder, because it then becomes less about time, but rather our priorities, values and habits. Is it that your day is literally packed with important tasks from sunrise to sunset, or is it that your day contains a few meaningful jobs but is also peppered with a lot of time wasting or faffing about?
With this knowledge, time then becomes a redundant reason for why we’re not meditating (or any other positive activity that we’re avoiding). It’s not because you don’t have any time. Instead, it’s a question of priorities, values and habitual behaviours. What’s important to you? Feeling less stressed and anxious and more connected, fulfilled and at peace? Or watching Netflix and scrolling Instagram? Neither of these things are necessarily bad, but if we do them then complain how little time we have to meditate/exercise/read/eat healthy, then we have an imbalance. There comes a time (ha ha) where the muscles of discipline and intention have to be exercised. We have to make a conscious choice, against all the odds the mind throws us, to sit down and meditate. Every day. Twice. And if we are wanting to learn, but haven’t yet, it’s time to look at the myriad excuses we are employing.
As the quote above says, this world will go on forever. Life isn’t about to get less intense or less demanding. Meditation then becomes a non-negotiable. Meditate, there’s no time to waste ;)