TaaS: Time as a service: You can’t buy time, but fortunately you can borrow it.

Dutch version of TaaS - Time as a Service - click here

Time is a precious asset. But time is running away with us. Fellow-Zeitgeist Farid Tabarki already pointed out in his column that the Dutch girl group Frizzle Sizzle knew this in 1986, when they sang that 'Everything has a rhythm'. Were they right? And do any of us really have the time to explore life at our own rhythm?

Maybe it was still possible in the 80s, when men in suits were revered the world over. But those days have passed- along with the ties. Living under pressure is a sign of status in today’s world , and thus we run. It starts with waking up, or more specifically , being woken up. Whether by alarm clock or the sounds of the forest, take your pick, but we are awakened nonetheless. And then you're gone, the whole day extending out in front of you, yet no time to waste.

Makeable time 

Time is limited and every day conforms to the same linear pattern; 24 hours, no more , no less. It is difficult to imagine, but humans were capable of rational thought long before the notion of time. Man in his infinite wisdom has found a way of making time where none exists, namely, through the power of outsourcing. Technology and inter-connectivity have led to a proliferation of services designed to save us time, from ironing to dog walking to ready meals. Time, as with all things, has found a price.

Time as a Service

We can’t take possession of it, but we can borrow extra time through others. And with this new -found power we fill empty periods with other, more productive tasks. We work while we drive, watch screens while we travel, listen to podcasts during exercise, .... .

With this “newly created”time, we find ample excuse to transpose previously unachievable hopes and dreams into ever-growing bucket lists. This was reinforced by the research carried out in 2013 by Professor Ignace Glorieux of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, who noted that 'We have no less available time than back in the day, we just have more things to do'. We complain about the rush and the hassle of life, yet re-inforce this notion through our own behaviour. Quite the paradox.

We also find that expectations , both personal and societal, have shifted considerably;

·        No longer enough to be a good father we must be a super dad, a life coach who manages all childhood activities with supreme confidence and expertise. Super dad goes camping with his son, making fire using native techniques, whilst sleeping under the stars.

·        No longer enough to be an attractive woman, we must be an outstanding mother, a sensational cook at home after spending the day being super efficient at work.

·        No longer enough to do a little exercise, we must fight our way through top athletes' work schedules with never-ceasing energy. A marathon? So last year! Real athletes are running a marathon as a warm up for the Ironman             event, preferably in Hawaii.

·        No longer enough to be a nice, reliable companion, we must be an extraordinary romantic to rival the protagonist of a Shakespeare play.

And of course we lavishly share all this with our social network; the network is paramount in an inter-connected world.

We want to excel at all times, and we assure our children that they can become anything they want. Dream Big! But always looking to the distance leads you to miss the beauty lying right in front of your eyes . ‘L’essential est invisible pour les yeux’ - We lose the eye for detail, the hidden, the invisible. Sweden already has the perfect answer to this ; ‘Lagom’ recognises things the way they are, the way they are meant to be, just enough.

Loafing

Createable time in an unforgiving world requires control. Measuring is key and time is limited. Every tick on that bucket list is a step closer to happiness, or so we believe.

Do you dare to step back in such a world? Just sit around, doing nothing? Conceivably , most of us lost the power to do this a long time ago. We find ourselves utterly over-stimulated, always multi-tasking yet never truly present. The world is populated by ghosts, absorbed in the relentless machine of life, heading towards the Continual Partial-Attention Syndrome, which in turn lowers our IQ.

How do we deal with silence? Research from 2014, published in Science magazine, shows that people would rather ‘reward’ themselves with mild electric impulses than deal with another period of boredom. Rather a bit of something than a whole lot of nothing. Strange, because in moments of peace there’s chance for reflection and creativity. No wonder that we still laud the great minds of the past- maybe they were so brilliant because they had the space and time to truly reflect, create, target, focus.

Joy of missing out

In Belgium, supermarkets Colruyt and Lidl are exploring the ‘Right to unavailability’ after working hours, reinforced in countries such as Germany where a number of large companies such as Volkswagen and Daimler are looking to protect their employees against work stress in the same way. Maybe they should turn their attention to France, where this has been regulated by law since 1 January 2017.

Even Kevin Systrom, founder and now ex-CEO of Instagram, confirmed to adjusting the function ‘user insights’ of the popular photo-editing app. This function must give the users information about how much time they spend on Instagram, furthering his own idea that "All time has to be spent positively and consciously".

Yet there is no point in all this if we do not take advantage of free time to just do nothing at all. Maybe we should be working towards a time where FOMO (fear of missing out) becomes JOMO (joy of missing out). A right to say no.

Annoying time

Boredom is a rich source of ingenuity and productivity. It allows you to know yourself better, giving you space to make plans and figure out how to bring them to action. It gives you the opportunity to refine and self-reflect. Truthfully , this is probably the thing that scares us most and what we spend our time running away from. And that brings us to a new 4-letter word: FOSY - fear of seeing yourself.

The reading time of this column was 5'57 " - nearly 6 minutes pondering the essence of time. Arguably time well spent, if only to learn about the rhythms of life which Frizzle Sizzle tried to teach us about in 1986.