About Time

By on January 6, 2011 in CEO Thinking
I don’t have enough time to do that!
How often do you say that? How often do you think that?
Do you ever question whether or not that is true?
I have been thinking about Time quite a bit lately.
I started thinking about Time a couple of months ago when, one after another, I heard a number of people say they did not have time to do this or to do that. It expanded when a friend asked me if I had read anything by the [Canadian] author Eckhart Tolle1. It expanded more when the people in the LinkedIn group called Positive Thinkers started to exchange ideas about Time.
While this was going on I wrote Thought Posts expressing an opinion Successful people have more time2. Some people argued this was absolutely impossible. Other people said they agreed with the view. And, the LinkedIn group discussion of Time continues. And, I wrote and asked Eckhart Tolle if he would share his thoughts about Time. I know, in one of his CDs, he said “Time is an illusion”. Perhaps, that’s enough said?
Eckhart Tolle teaches the Power of Now and the Art of Presence:

  • We only have the present.
  • When the present passes, it becomes the past…and it is gone. It is at best a memory.
  • The future is not guaranteed to any of us. If it arrives then it arrives as the next piece of ‘the present’.
So, I am about ready to set aside the question “What is Time?” Although, before I do that I will restate my views:

  • Time is an organizing-tool designed by Man.
  • Time is an introductory effort at measuring the incomprehensible [universe].
Setting aside the definition of Time, most people would agree each of us has ‘the present’. And, during our lives we have a string of pieces of ‘the present’. As each piece of ‘the present’ passes it becomes the past. As the next piece of ‘the present’ arrives it ceases to be the future. We do not know how many pieces of ‘the present’ will come to us. All we know for sure is we have ‘the present’.
We can succeed if we make the best use of the present. Successful people have 2 good habits:

  1. they do better at defining what success means to them
  2. they make the better use of the present
I continue to think successful people have more time.
Footnotes:

  1. I have now listened to several Eckhart Tolle audio books. A link to Eckhart Tolle.
  2. Successful people have more time links Successful People Have More Timeand About Time

About Rick Baker

Rick worked in the energy sector for 20 years...starting at Union Gas, moving to the free market side, partnering with fellow entrepreneurs and building an energy-marketing company, selling that business to an affiliate of Shell Oil, taking a little breather, and founding a few Waterloo-based energy businesses.Over the last few years, Rick has taken what he enjoyed from his energy career and used it as the base for founding Spirited Investors. Spirited Investors is a local, private-equity investment company. Spirited Investors relies on its hands-on investors - Activestors. Rick is a student of strategic planning, a student of marketing & sales management and an avid reader of books and web-based information on these and other topics. Rick is a student of self-help. Rick is an admirer of the English language....something about his Mom making him look up words in the dictionary when he was a child.From time to time, Rick has been known to exhibit a quirky sense of humour.
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