Doing The Opposite.
Seinfeld is one of the greatest TV sitcoms of all time and one I became obsessed with for a while. My favorite episode centers around George Costanza.
Besides being short, bald, and having glasses, George was also unemployed, lived with his parents, and had zero prospects for romantic partners. He was feeling pretty down at the beginning of this episode…until he came to a life-altering realization.
Every instinct George has is wrong, so he decides to do the opposite.
I tried that recently too, although I didn’t do the opposite for every aspect of my life — just for one specific area. An area where arguably my most influential fear dwells…
Time. The fear of not having enough time.
It was an hour before my midterm. Maybe I should have been cramming. I’m certain other students were. But I didn’t. Instead, I got dinner with my friend Praveen. As we savored our delicious root beer floats and talked about our ingredients for smiles, I was glad I did the opposite.
The day before that, I also should have been studying for that exam. I did…a little, but I also “wasted time” by putting a message out on Facebook to deliver requests for hugs and high fives.
I felt like people needed that…or at least I did.
Then, the day after the exam I didn’t have to study anymore, but I did have a scheduled call to discuss an upcoming event for Project Passion. I ended up rescheduling that when a friend needed someone to vent to after she experienced what seemed like a devastating interview mishap. Again, I was doing the opposite of what I would have done a couple years ago.
With time being our most valuable resource, the fear of not having enough of it is overwhelmingly powerful. Our instinct is to treat time like anything else that is scarce: hold onto it as tightly as possible and not let anyone else near it.
But like George’s instincts, this one is wrong.
We cannot think of time as scarce (even if it is). We need to do the opposite and think of it as abundant.
With abundant or “unlimited” time as a friend of mine likes to call it, we feel less rushed. We can relax by taking our time to chat with friends and strangers. We can notice the beautiful clouds and trees and people during our walks between classes. We can lend a helping hand to someone who needs it even if it’s not convenient for us, and we can do all this without worrying about running out of time.
I realized this week that we are never wasting time when we do things to make others or ourselves feel better.
I haven’t gotten my exam results back yet, but I think I did pretty well.
If it turns out I didn’t, I’ll survive…and I’ll live happier knowing I enjoyed time well spent with friends.
How to apply the concept of “unlimited” time to your life:
As you go through your day, before making decisions or taking actions, ask yourself:
“what would I do if I thought I had abundant time compared to scarce time?”
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