Owning My Time.

There was a time when I was completely unable to say no to anyone who wanted to play with me. Whenever someone says something like that, we automatically assume it is because of fear of repercussion, social imbalance, inaccessibility of autonomy or low self-esteem, but that wasn’t the case for me, not on the face of it, anyway. I never said no because everything in the world was always an opportunity—to learn more, to experience more, to know more, to do more—and I harbour a deep fear of squandering opportunity. Right now, at least a small part of me is worried that I’m not actively pursuing more books, more partners, more love, more degrees, more accolades. More something. I’m worried that not doing so means my life is not as full as it should be.

This doesn’t just extend to my sexuality.

For many years, I ran myself ragged at work too. I will do anything I can think of, I will say yes to every offer, I will take every opportunity, I will pursue every single story. If you can get to me a couple of hours before it needs to be done, I will find a way. You may think that’s about money, and it is, insofar as I am invested in my survival and comfort, but most of my money just lies in my bank-account while I spend my hours sitting at my tiny-desk which could be much nicer and more comfortable or wandering after leads. I have no interest in anything. I don’t want to go to a concert. I don’t want nice clothes. I mostly buy grains and books on Amazon. The only pursuit in life that has ever brought me any gratification is the process. The process of love, the process of creation, the process of writing, the process of doing.

I just want to keep doing.

And that is the mindset behind why I could never say no to anyone who asked to play (and didn’t outrightly eliminate themselves by being creepy as fuck), I think in modern-day parlance, it is referred to as FOMO, but I will avoid using that term because of cringe and inadequacy of context. I worry that if I don’t do everything right now, I won’t get to it before I die, and because of a combination of trauma and heightened threat-perception as a result, I always feel like I am just about to die. It’s a lot of pressure. It’s a real bastardisation of living each day as if it could be your last, and it could, couldn’t it? There’s just enough reason to it to keep believing in its possibility, but eventually, you live enough big, meaningful, consequential last-days and your baseline for normal just gets warped. You just have to keep doing more. There’s something to the last of anything, right? We do it up because we expect it to be the most enduring memory of the process. There’s urgency to it too, if you feel like you are running out of time.

I thought that was the problem.

I thought the problem was the approach and if I could develop some level of belief in tomorrow, I would not feel like this all the time. So, a few of years ago, I started saying no when I wasn’t interested in something or someone, I started saying no if I didn’t have the time to take on something new, I started saying no to new partners and relationships. I figured, if I didn’t act out of urgency and the fear of losing opportunity anymore, I would make decisions based solely on my fulfilment instead, and I did, but I also realised it wasn’t my approach that was the problem, after all. The problem isn’t that today may be my last day alive, it’s my assumption of what I would want to do with my last day.

Big things.

New things.

More things.

To some level, I have to accept who I am, and who I am is a person who will always doggedly pursue every idea I have, and I love that. I love that I spent time in my life developing skills and discipline, to enabling the most well-suited situation for myself and my creativity, and I love that it means that I have the time and space to pursue any idea, no matter how ridiculous. I love that I want to do that all the time. I hate that I feel so pressured to do it right now or I will never be able to do it because I will be dead. I hate the urgency that I feel as a result of that thought because ultimately it robs from the thing I love the most: The process. It wasn’t just about learning to say no, or getting to everything because I would be ready to die, it was about accepting I wouldn’t get to everything.

A few days ago, I was appearing on someone’s podcast and they asked me what my favourite book I have written was, and without missing a beat, without even knowing that is what I was going to say, I responded,

“The next one.”

That will always be the answer because I will always keep hoping, planning and wanting to do more, and someday, there will be a next one that I will not get to write. There will be a next person I won’t meet. A next fuck I won’t get. A next idea I won’t have. That used to terrify me, but something extremely pedestrian and amazing happened a few days ago. I needed something for a recipe and I walked to the store and got it. I didn’t opt for 6-minute delivery, I didn’t order it online, I didn’t drive to the shop. I just went and got it. It took 45-minutes to procure a single item and to a person of my sensibilities that is insane. You just live without it and find another plan if that is how long it will take because you cannot waste time, because if you do, you won’t be able to do the other things and if you don’t do those now, you’ll never do them *because you will die*.

But, what if, the thing I did on my last day on Earth was to walk 45-minutes to the store and back to buy chickpeas?

I feel, finally, okay with that. I thought about it from a point of view that I hadn’t considered before, and that is, the ownership of my time. In my methods, I was always earning my own time from myself and so I had to “make it count” and making it count meant doing the most, but what if, I felt ownership over my time? These are MY forty-five minutes. I can do the most with them or I can drink a cup of tea.

I finally feel like I am okay with both.

It’s my time and I’m going to walk to the damn store with it.