Have you ever heard about time sickness? Time sickness is a “disease” that was first described by Larry Dossey in 1982. He describes the symptoms of time sickness to include the desire for efficiency from everything in life, with never any let-up. I’ll bet that this contagious disease has infected everyone in this world.

The drawback of this disease is that we would never be able to stop thinking about work, always being stressed out and anxious about everything in life. Even reading this 500-word column would have to be timed to finish within 30 seconds. This disease not only harms our physical body but also our inner life. I do not know about you but for me, every time I finish tasks under time sickness deficiency I feel so empty.

Sometimes, I would ask myself what did I gain from that other than a momentary satisfaction?

There is a saying, “Live everyday as if today is your last day on Earth.” This may be the ultimate motto of time sickness patients: trying to squeeze in and finish as many tasks as they can. A day contains 24 hours: 1440 minutes; 86, 400 seconds. In terms of numbers, we have a lot of “seconds,” a lot of time in one day.

Time sickness people would try to calculate and evaluate how many more tasks they can complete within this 86,400 seconds. What if, instead of having 86,499 seconds as your last bit of time on Earth, you had only 58 seconds: what would you do?

Fifty-eight seconds. What a tiny bit of time! They slip by very easily. For the time sickness people, they might try to do as many tasks as they can, fulfilling as many wishes as they can in that 58 seconds. They might start by using 10 seconds to plan ahead, 10 seconds for preparations, and so on. There is no room in their lives for contemplation, no vision of a moment they can stop working.

I think the world is so complicated now because everybody has this time sickness deficiency. People would focus on their own tasks and neglect the things happening around them, Wars, conflicts, woes seem to me to all originate from the time sickness deficiency virus. It would be nice just to put those preoccupations aside, and enjoy the moment of peace and relaxation without any thoughts.

I hope we would never be immune from this disease.

The world needs more cooperation, and less hate and selfishness. Curing this deficiency by immersing yourself into a moment of peace is not difficult, and can go a long ways toward promoting love and selflessness. Make a wish, fill your heart with hope and happiness.

Slow your life down; enjoy your moments of tranquility. There’s no need to always be rushing, because there’s no winning a never-ending race.

Enjoy your last 58 seconds of life.

Who knows where you will be in the next minute?

This article is originally published in Register-Guard, Eugene, OR on June 23, 2012 (Saturday) with the same title (but slightly different content).

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