You’re probably going to want to read Part 1 for this to make sense, but let me see if I can sum up:
We were talking about being on (metaphorical!) Island Time, and how crazy, delightful, weird and uncanny it is when you suddenly perceive time to be plentiful and spacious.
I told some stories about living in a period of very extreme money-tightness but when time was the only thing that wasn’t limited. And I think you’re caught up…
Opposite land.
Me-from-then wouldn’t recognize my life today. Where things are basically the opposite of what they were in Berlin.
Instead of the semi-legal life in an abandoned building with junkies on the stairs, I have a just-right-for-me home — which I call Hoppy House — in northeast Portland.
With a garden. And a window seat that looks out on it where I can write.
Instead of having to teaching yoga, Shiva Nata and destuckifying techniques in squatted buildings, I run an amazing studio called the Playground. And I’m the CEO and pirate queen of the crazy ship that is The Fluent Self, Inc.
Same but different.
Those are the parts that me-from-then doesn’t recognize.
In fact, I’m not sure what blows her mind more: the unfamiliar thing that is stability and sanctuary. Or the fact that we totally run a corporation (ahahahahahaaaaaaaa what?!). Even if it is a tiny good-for-the-world one.
But there are lots of things she does recognize:
A life devoted to untangling patterns, deconstructing them and rewriting them. Working in the helper mouse sector. Living mindfully but in a way that is playful and silly as well as conscious and intentional.
Same but different.
Anyway, the point is: the life she knew was one where money was impossibly tight, while time was this wonderful, plentiful, accessible resource.
And at some point everything switched.
I’ve been running this business for six years as of this month.
There was definitely a period where my perception was that both time and money were tight and unavailable. The No Time No Money grumblethrum monster collective did a lot of yelling and teeth-gnashing.
But then things basically reversed. Money became more ease-filled while time became more and more scarce.
Obviously it’s not like I’m rolling in piles of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck, but things are good.
I run a successful company. It’s been years since we’ve required those vast leaps of faith to trust-hope-believe that we’d make it through the next month. Saying a quiet thank you to here to everyone and everything who believed during the hard times.
And sure, there are still those moments of “Eeeek!” where I suddenly think I’m going to end up living in a cardboard box. It’s just that they’re not a reflection of reality: it’s a flash of poverty-PTSD triggering the monster fear, and then I deal with that.
What happened to my relationship with time?
So. Somehow at the same time that money and my relationship to actually having it was becoming less restrictive, my relationship with time went the other way.
From my perception of time being plentiful and bendy to experiencing it as something limited and rigid. To a relationship that was full of challenge.
It seriously took me six years just to be able to justify stuff like jetting off to a dance class. In the morning?! On a weekday?!
I’m somewhat better at that sort of thing now, having learned — slowly, grudgingly, over time and through extreme trial and error — that taking time actually helps me and my business.
Lots of people (cough, possibly me) tell you that taking creative time, body time, play time and other forms of you-time will feed your work in the world.
But it’s the kind of thing you kind of have to keep learning until it lives in your body as a truth that you remember is true.
You learn it and then you re-learn it.
So I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can make room for a morning dance class. But the time getting there and back?
I’ve really resented it. Driving there takes twenty minutes. The bus takes 45. So double that.
And that’s where businesswoman me goes into resistance.
That’s forty-five minutes times two during which I could be writing copy, brunching a product, teaching a class, solving admin challenges, working on systems, training someone, working with a client.
At some point I realized that I’d unconsciously traded one extreme for another.
I’d gone from one end of a continuum (“Money is non-existent but hey, time is practically unlimited”)…
… to the opposite side (“We’re cool with money but there is never, ever enough of that incredibly precious commodity that is time”).
Perspective.
Of course, either of those extremes is still better than the place (and I’ve been there) where there is really and truly not enough of EITHER of these.
And I don’t mean the sense of no money and no time. I don’t mean the regular shrieking of the No Money No Time fears. Though that’s horrible too, of course.
I mean literally when circumstances and choices come together in such a way that in that moment, time and money are not available to you. Like in Berlin.
Like back when I was doing monk’s yoga in my tiny non-cell. Or when I worked in the factory. When I had to sneakily wake up at dark-thirty just to steal minutes to be alone and breathe.
Anyway, I would like to believe that there is also another place.
A situation or an experience where both money and time are equally plentiful.
This thought broke my brain.
Equally plentiful? Time and money being readily available? Both of them?!?! Not one or the other but both of them.
What would that even be like?
I don’t know! How do I imagine it? Powerful. Like I can be generous with each (money and time). Giving to myself, others and my life as I feel drawn to.
In ways that are sovereign, supportive, conscious, creative and loving.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! That was the sound of my mind not being able to contain this idea again.
It’s like at some point I got stuck in this distorted forever-thinking. That because I have no time now (or really, because I perceive that my time is not mine or I perceive that my current choices about time will always be the same), this would always be the case.
Except I was wrong. Twice!
I didn’t take the bus home after dance class. I walked in the sun. I smiled at toddlers in sailor hats and stopped to pet some cats. I paused (paws!) to drink water and breathe.
It didn’t take an hour and a half or two hours to reach the Playground, as estimated. It took 47 minutes. Forty seven minutes.
Just two minutes longer than by bus. But much more pleasant.
But the bigger thing I was wrong about was this:
It didn’t matter.
Nothing had been lost by not giving that time to my business. Nothing had been lost.
It was the same as going on pirate queen vacation or being on Island Time. I’d had business ideas. I’d gotten perspective. It was better than hurrying back to work.
I don’t love being wrong, but sometimes I love being wrong.
Where I’m leaving this.
- Feeling appreciation for me-from-last-week who decided to go on Island Time and for me-from-three-months-ago who wrote the popsicle slip permission slip for me to go to dance class in the mornings.
- Feeling happy that the experience of making time for dancing brought me back to remembering what my life was like when time was limitless.
- Writing a reminder in the Book of Me that dance and Shiva Nata bring me home to time.
- Asking curious, loving questions about this new relationship with time. About what happens if it isn’t either time or money (where both are limited or one is expansive but only so long as the other one gets to be limited).
- Rewriting some internal rules about the way the world works.
- Deciding what the next OOD is.
And then we’ll see.
And comment zen for today.
Talking about time and money, and the lack (or lack-of-lack) of each can be really painful and hard.
As always, if reading about my stuff has reminded you of your stuff, you might need to do some extra things to take care of yourself.
Like taking a deep breath and reminding yourself that things get better and that now is not then. You have internal resources now that you did not have before. You can help sad, scared you from then in ways you couldn’t at that time.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We take responsibility for the fact that it is ours and we remember that it is temporary.
Things that would be lovely today: thoughts and ideas about ways you might experiment with learning more about your relationship with time, with money, with the relationship between them. And more flowers!
Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
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Havi, I would love to get to the place where I feel like I have an abundance of both time and money, regularly. It’s hard. I’ve been working on my small business, and learning as I go. It’s been probably the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and I keep wanting to give up, because there’s just so much to learn and so much to do that I never feel like I have time for a break. ^_^;
Thanks for these words. It helps me to believe that I’ll get there someday. And I really do need to take time to relax and breathe and practice and read, not just DO all the time. {:
Right now, I have my first real job in a long time; I’m getting paid to do some art for an indie video game, and I’m ecstatic over it. But there’s the looming fear of “what next?” when it’s done. At least I’ll have experience and credits then, though!
I heard a really cool quote from Jack Canfield the other day, “In order to progress to the next rung on the ladder, you have to let go of the one you’re on.” Or something like that. I suddenly realised – clanging bells and whatnot – that I was so attached to the importance I’d placed on my partner’s big salary, that I literally couldn’t see another way for us to earn a living. Hectic burger! So now we’ve taken that leap of faith, and put plans in motion to return to our favourite city. No big fat job waiting, maybe a half day one if things pan out according to plan. If not…hey…that’s cool too. I’m not sure how helpful this will be for others, but I liked the idea of being a commenter mouse ;-
This very powerful thinking – and so interesting to follow.
Thank you for writing it and I am looking forward to reading about time&money experiments.
I am thinking how could I experiment myself.
I’d love the sense of having more time or containers of time that are not about work, which is tough as a PhD student.
I could do ‘moving into’ and ‘moving out of free time’ rituals. say that a day is enough after so many hours of work. I could rely on outside sources for work delimitations.
I could accept it when my brain is scattered and be nice and tell myself ‘whatever you need honey’. I could try something wildly new that seems supportive and see what happens
When I left Microsoft 4 years ago, I thought that “lack of money” would be a difficult hurdle for me. It was, for about 6 months, then I got over it and have been fine ever since. I have an abundant life and plenty of money. Why I ever thought I needed so much money to survive is a bit of a mystery to me now.
Anyway, the “lack of time” beast turned out to be a much bigger foe. For years I’d blamed my employers and full-time grad and post-grad school for my lack of time (as in, I’m too busy to work out, too busy to cook, must work late, must put in extra hours, too busy to walk the dog, etc.). One of the nicest things about working for myself, though, is that I eventually recognized that there’s no longer anyone else to blame but myself! And I can change myself (with some help from those around me)! 🙂
Today, I put in 6- to 8-hour work days, 4 days/week, and absolutely everything I do in those hours I now count as work. In addition to the things my brain easily recognizes as work, now, for me, exercising and walking = improving corporate health. Feng shui-ing the house = improving organizational energy and morale. Clothes shopping = saavy preparation for workshops and speaking. Meal preparation = down time to relax and allow the bigger ideas to show up. I also hold 45-minute daily morning staff meetings with my dog and three cats: meetings that involve feather-thing and stuffed hedgehog chasing. Sometimes I invite humans. (When I travel, the pets insist my partner hold the meeting before he leaves for work. They’re extraordinarily dedicated co-workers.)
From being guilt-ridden daily that my work life looks different from others, I’m down to maybe one-guilt-ridden moment per quarter and instead believing that I’m (now we’re) modeling the way work life should be for those, like me, who really should be running dog- and cat-filled staff meetings and feng shui-ing their living rooms to open them to what’s coming next. The box around what counts as work is ours to expand! Important work, I think.
Thanks for writing about this important subject!
Love this. Really, really brilliant.
This week, after a particularly stressful thing-that-I-knew-would-be-stressful thing, I had another thing right after. By the end of the two things, I was a big blob of nothingness. I could have melted. I was literally used up — and finally got it into my head that I now have the [ability? freedom? security?] to choose white space in my day. It came as a bit of a shock, that I could actually do that. That I can make myself more or less available. (I know, isn’t that why I supposedly have the “freedom” of my own business in the first place?)
For so long we work and work, demanding so much of ourselves and thinking if we don’t do more we’ll end up living in a van down by the river. I’m glad you had the walk, and that you gave yourself permission to enjoy the sparkly, beautiful business you’ve created that always thrills me. Thank you for putting all this into words!
These two posts are, for me, the most powerful that you’ve written since Bolivia, (not that everything in between is not brilliant!)but there are certain posts that fall on my lap exactly when I need them.
I’ve been struggling with this relationship for a couple of years now. My husband has a job that allows him full flexibility on his time, he can work from anywhere, except when he has to teach, and I have a modest job that also gives me flexibility although my salary is about 1/3 or what he makes, but having a flexible job allows me to go with him whenever he goes to conferences or to special events..
On the other hand, I just finished an MA and one of my minor leviathans keeps rocking my boat with guilt trips about wasting all that time and effort and for no having a big-bucks job.. I want time, but money is not so good, if I want money, forget the month-long vacation and forget about freeloading on academic conferences all over the world..
The question would be, am I happy in my job… would I be happier doing something else..
Who knows. I might know but I don’t want to say it. Time and money really are a tricky pair..
Definitely having a no time no money moment. Very much living in the hard. Tons of opportunities that I’m pursuing, but which don’t pay NOW but LATER. Slightly Future Me and husband are not speaking same language. Sprinting because I’m trying to pull weight, make something catch fire… and because sitting with the discomfort of faith is too terrifying, so I’d rather be crazed.
Apparently, I’ve got to find a fountain.
this is so just the right thing at the right time… i know i will get to learn from you in person one day.
my little sweet thing, born of lots of time and no money, is writing encouragement letters to whomever enters their name into the contact box on my website. i hope to write a free ebook that will encourage whomever will read it.
and i also want to be free with money and free with time, but i see now that each is valuable in their own way and i have deliberately created free with time for myself and am learning about the next part and not to be so hard on myself…
thank you for existing, havi, thank you so!!!
I have really enjoyed both of these posts.
As I was reading this one, something cool occurred to me – these things about time came from things around your dance class, and at least in one sense, dance is all about micro-time – being aware of time in music in little tiny beats.
As I write this, it also reminds me of beats in acting – breaking a scene down into “beats” of action – time on a somewhat larger scale then dance, but still fairly small.
I wonder what would happen if I paid more attention to the beats of my life, both in the rhythmic sense and the dividing things into individual beats of action or inaction sense.
Purple hydrangeas
oof the time money continuum of doooom. Well or not. I’ve been in those very places where the having of the one automatically means the not having of the other.
Then there was the time I worked 3 (yep 3) jobs and was going to school full-time and still had both time and money plenty. I was even volunteering as a stage hand for a new company and I didn’t count that as a job. So four jobs, because the company staged a play while I was volunteering.
Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that. And I’m here now going ohmawgawd I can’t do all that stuff to support myself and the other stuff I’m wanting to do because I don’t have enough tiiiime.
It is maybe time (ha) to sit down with the me from then and explore the qualities we used then, so I can apply them in the now.
And oh I’m so glad that you have this tiny-do-good-corporation because you are proof that the inc. doesn’t mean doom, doom, doom.
Thank you.
@Andy *mmm* dance – the micro-beat of life. That feels delicious to say and makes me want to dance.
I have been having just this same dilemma. I am going back to school in September to facilitate a complete career change (YAY ME!). The summer gig I took to make money before school without being entangled like I was at my old job wants me to stay on part time in the fall for a ridiculously good hourly rate. And oh, I SHOULD because its easy and lucrative and I am denying my family all the income I used to make AND spending money on school.
BUT (and to me this is a HUGE BUT), one of the reasons this career change is needed was because time was so tight that in order to do the minimum of all the important stuff, I was working from 6 am to 10pm and that sucked. ANd we did it for years. And I don’t want to anymore. And, I feel like if I work part time I lose that beautiful expanse of time I see shimmering before me just waiting to be used well, savored and allowed to make me much less crazy.
What to do… what to do…
Oh, I needed this. I’ve been asking the question “what if it’s possible to have both” but so far the idea of having both breaks my brain still. But it occurs to me that I am on vacation and am ok so now is a very good time to let the idea simmer. Thank you!
I have a lovely daisy for you – and for everyone here.
My original comment was insanely long so I deleted it!
This is really thought-provoking, Havi. We are at a point in our lives where we have to re-think our relationship with time and money so your thoughts are valuable.
It all comes down to Quality of Life.
That walk to work was a significant contributor to the quality of your life.
My time on the front porch significantly contributes to mine, and there is very little that I can imagine buying that would do as much for me.
Rose petals…
I was so gung-ho about this story, yesterday that is, until the other shoe dropped with part 2. Now I’m fussy…who says it has to be one or the other, time or money? Why *can’t* we have enough of each? Not infinite time and money, which is a fun fantasy and a feeling of limitlessness can be quite rejuvinating. But, what about enough time and money?
I want to blame it on capitalism and the assumption of scarcity. Also, our old hurts that haven’t healed, around not getting what we actually and truly needed, telling us that there’s just not enough for us.
I’d like to challenge my patterned thinking around this and practice imagining that there is, if not right now, the very real possibility of enough time and enough money to live fully and be fully ourselves.
~Love and flowers to all~
Havi-
I love you for sharing this here. I have been struggling with the issue of having enough time and fitting it all in for a while now. Just reading this post and all the incredibly brilliant gave me so much to think about. It’s always such a comfort to know I’m not the only one having the issue.
It’s hard for me to believe how much pain this feeling of perpetual overwhelm and running to catch up is causing me. I know it’s the recreation of a steady state of anxiety because that’s what’s familiar. But it’s a real shock to the heart when you realize that you’re the cause of your own suffering.
I have a lot of unwinding to do around this issue. This post has given me a great starting point and I look forward to hearing more about what you discover for yourself.
@Lauren this part of your comment – I want to blame it on capitalism and the assumption of scarcity. Also, our old hurts that haven’t healed, around not getting what we actually and truly needed, telling us that there’s just not enough for us.
is so brilliant and true and really speaks to the heart of the issue. That’s soul medicine right there. You’re very smart.
Love to you Havi and thanks.
xoxo
Walking is magical. I gave up my bus-pass three years ago, and haven’t regretted it at all (granted, I live in the center of a tiny city, so just about everything is walkable).
Walking to meetings/gigs/appointments/errands/shows is so much less stressful (and better smelling) for me than taking the bus. I still take public transit sometimes, sure, but mostly I walk.
Which means I have time to fully wake up if I’ve got an early-morning appointment.
Which means I have time to decompress after a stressful meeting.
Which means I can plan shows, work on plots, accidentally encounter nearby friends, and run errands on my way home from Where Ever I Was and do it in a marvelously relaxing fashion.
Which means I can smell apple blossoms and lilacs (right now, anyway) on residential streets rather than desil fumes and recycled air on a crowded rush-hour bus.
It’s wonderful.
I hope you get to do more walking-to/from-dance-class (and anywhere else) from now on. 🙂
Cheers,
Ms S