If there was no Time

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.” — Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

A friend of mine sent this beautiful prose to me to read one morning. This was the first thing I read that day as I always start my day by going through my mobile. There was something magical and captivating in this for I could not concentrate on anything else. TIME! I knew I was late for breakfast that day as I could hear my mom shouting from the kitchen. I knew I had an elaborate routine to follow which involved hourly plans of the things to be done for the day. I was supposed to get up at 7 but had not been up until 8. I was already behind time and this was the first thing I read.

I wondered what difference would the absence of the essence of time have on my life. Would I still be running around trying to get all things done? Would I ever accomplish the goals I set if it was not bound by time? What about life priorities? How long will I have until I do everything I hoped to accomplish? Will I still be thinking about my future, if the concept of a future just did not exist?

I understood that mere pondering over such questions would not give me my answers. I decided to write down all the pros and cons I could think of and decide if ‘Time’ has actually made my life simpler or more complicated than I wanted it to be.

Pros

It would not matter when I finish my accomplishments in life. It would not matter if I complete my studies at 15 or 20 or 25 or 30. All that would matter is that I had achieved it.
Age as a concept will not exist. You will not have to respect or listen to someone just because they are elder to you for without time there would be no elders.
I will not have to do age appropriate things. I will not have to marry just because I am of the suitable age. I will not have to retire just because I reach the retirement age. I will be able to do things as and when they seem fit and based on my abilities.
I will be able to focus on my present. I need not have to worry of my future. The legendary interview question “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” would be irrelevant. I would do things which matter the most to me at that moment and maybe live them to the fullest.
I would not do or stop doing things just because the time was up. I would exercise until I was dead and not to complete the allotted time. I would work until I had done everything and not to put in the required number of hours. I could get things done much more thoroughly.
There would be less words to remember in your vocabulary as words such as when, today, yesterday, tomorrow, month, year, hour, seconds, moment, etc. would not exist.

Cons

Multi-tasking would not exist. There would be no need to get things done at the least possible time. You could do your chores as and when you wished. This would lead to many things being unfinished because most of us only do stuff only when we need to (Let us admit this).
There would not be a distinction between the things we want to do and the things we need to do. We could end up doing things detrimental to our own well being for even if time would not exist, there would still come moment when we cease to exist and we pass on our place to somebody else.
All events at a macro level would be difficult (impossible) to manage without time. There would be no large scale events taking place. All societies would have to be managed at a really macro level.

It seems things would be really good on a personal level but the more I think of humans as a whole, the absence of time would lead to chaos.

Maybe I could eliminate time as measurement in my life but still follow the rules set by society or maybe I could just take each moment in its stride and believe that the future will be good no matter what.

Just maybe.