Making Time For Unhurried Time

Making time for unhurried time appears simple, but difficult to do.  We have competing priorities coming at us from family, work, and increasingly from our devices.  The ding telling us we received a text message, an email, or a voice message.  A five-minute task on the computer, invariably consumes forty-five minutes leaving us  with a cold cup of coffee, a stock pot boiling over, or delaying us for our next appointment.

Attention to our family and work should be paramount, but what is it about the bright, glowing technological screens that draw us in and compels us to compulsively check our hand-held devices?  Whether standing in line, waiting at the doctor’s office, or stopping at a traffic light, we pickup our cell phone even when it is muted.

I was meeting a friend for breakfast and there we were, the three of us: Margaret, me, and Margaret’s cell phone on the table.   Margaret’s phone was turned down:  both its volume and its screen.  However, though the phone was on “silent mode”, it vibrated, and its effect was immediate.  The conversation flow was derailed.  Like a small child, the cell phone was picked up and given full attention.  Margaret apologizes and reads the text message while I sit silenced.  In enters the distracting device informing Margaret that “Target has a sale!” Our conversation was muted, at a standstill, causing us to ask, “what were we talking about?”  Somehow, we have become distracted by distractions and utterly disconnected.

In the TV sitcom Home Improvement, the main character Tim Taylor talked across the fence with his neighbor, Wilson.  They talked so frequently, that Wilson becomes confidant and advisor to the Taylor household, with words of wisdom and famous quotes.  The two men had time for unhurried time and conversation without the bright, glowing screen in their hands.  No cell phone chiming in disrupting their train of thought and meaningful moments.

Brain space, think time, and connecting with people need to be placed in our busy schedules.  Like the Tim and Wilson, they had unscheduled, unhurried time in their schedule to think and to talk with one another.  Their spontaneous conversations allowed them to deep dive into thoughtful dialogue.  No impromptu segways to hop online to Google for more “wisdom” or to recall a famous quote.  The time together is sustained and unbroken.  No chiming, vibrating, or glowing electronics.  No distractions. 

Technological abstinence is not what I’m advocating.  Replacing our online leisure time with dedicated time for stillness, a cup of hot coffee, or spending time with a friend or family is what I am championing.

Let us consider the life we had before portable electronics.  Our computers were only accessible at either our office or, for the few, at our homes.  Until we returned to our desktops, we were inaccessible and disconnected from our virtual world.  However, we were connected with our physical world and engaged with our surroundings.  The weather, the hum of traffic, and the passengers on the bus ride to work, were part of our visual landscape and we noticed and observed.  We slowed down, took in the sights, the sounds, and the air around us. 

My family went on a snow hike.  The quiet of the muffled snow was broken as we plodded upward between the pines and beams of sun.  The hoar frosted trees towered over us and broke our clopping whenever we heard the music of a dark-eyed junco or black-capped chickadee sing their song.  We marvel at how with each bird call, their whole body vibrated.  So much energy is exerted to deliver their sweet twitters.  I pull out my cell phone to take a photo and then stand in the stillness marveling at the beauty that I see and hear.  The crisp, biting winter wind subsides, and we continue onward for another hour.  Together with my family, the time is sustained and unbroken.  No chiming, vibrating, or glowing electronics.  No distractions. 

“Never hurry and never worry!”  This was Charlotte’s advice to Wilbur in E.B. White’s book Charlotte’s Web.  The fictional book is about a friendship between a spider, Charlotte, who calmly assures his anxious friend, Wilbur, the barnyard pig, that she will help him after she has had time to think while he rests.  There is wisdom in those words that we can apply in our own lives.  Electronics are efficient and in turn speed us up.  Never hurry to your technological devices because they inevitably will hijack the moments that matter.   The true connection is with a person, with nature, with a book, or with our quiet still thoughts. Never worry or be anxious when you cannot return the chime of your phone on the dime.  Gaining efficiency in responding to a text or email is no comparison to s-l-o-w-i-n-g down and making time for unhurried time.