Time’s Illusionist

By Jorim-Paul Phillips 21 February 2017, 12:00AM

Jorim–Paul Phillips is a new columnist for the Samoa Observer’s ‘Newspapers in Education’ feature. 

A couple of days ago, I was completing some assignments that I had left to the last minute and a friend saw me. He approached me to see what I was doing but I decided to act like I didn’t see him. When He tapped me on the shoulder, I quickly looked up at his smiling face and he said, “Jorim, Don’t stress! Didn’t you know that time is just an illusion?”

That comment made me very upset. I knew that if time was an illusion, I would not need to go through all the pressure of getting my work done before the final bell rang.

Everybody is obsessed with time. There is always an assignment that’s due, or an e-mail that needs mailing, or a report that needs reviewing. Time is a trend that we have mixed feelings about. Unlike all the other obsessive trends such as Snapchatting, Insta-filtering and hashtagging that the youth of today seems to get so excited about, time is a fad that no one can shake off.

We look at time the way we look at money; we never want to waste it.

And just like money, sometimes we have a lot of it, and a lot of the time we don’t have any of it. As cliché as it might sound, it is true that time waits for no man (nor does it wait for any woman). 

An illusionist is a person who performs tricks. They are found not only at the Magic Circus of Samoa but they can basically be found anywhere. We are all masters of the art of self-illusion and we try and console ourselves by saying ‘I didn’t have enough time’ or ‘time is not on my side’.

We try to hide the truth under a thick coat of addictive yet poisonous procrastinating, followed by a large scoop of laziness. We purposefully avoid doing the right thing in order to gain an extra minute of relaxation time.

We spend so much time scrolling on Facebook to find out more about some person that we do not even know and we constantly neglect the things right in front of us that are way more important and deserving of our time. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of”.

Our lives are short, yet we spend so much time worrying about it. We waste valuable moments that could be spent doing more useful things such as spending time with family, encouraging a friend or brightening someone’s day by doing something thoughtful for them.

Technology has enabled us to achieve goals faster than we could have one hundred years ago, this in turn frees up a lot of our time. However, we still find ways to waste the last couple of minutes doing things that add no value to our life.

Even though we all fall victim to this at times, there are some people who have been able to use their time wisely and not fluff around like the rest of us. For that I applaud you. We all need a little self-control in our lives, because even if it’s little it can go a long way.

Time is like a wave. You can either learn to surf it and use it to your advantage or you can curl up into a ball, maybe have a little cry if you want to and then sink like a rock. Life is too fast to be worrying about trivial things such as; what colour outfit you’re going to wear, if your biceps are big enough or if your eyebrows are on fleek.

Instead seize the day. Carpe Diem. Go running in the rain, wake up early to watch the sunrise once in a while or even buy yourself a cake for no reason at all!

Smile at some random person that you don’t even know and you will be surprised at how good you feel when they smile back.

We need to stop worrying about time, quit procrastinating, finish all that needs to be done, and focus our time and energy on things that matter. We can expose the illusion for what it is and make the most of the time we have to do something that gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

 

By Jorim-Paul Phillips 21 February 2017, 12:00AM

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