Time is a great source of your unhappiness. You worry about someone not coming back on time, or not graduating on time, or they were late, or early, the baby didn’t walk in time, they weren’t here in time to eat with us. If, to these endless sources of distraction, you say, “There is no time but the perfect time”, or, “Everything happens at the appointed time”, then you shrug off one of the negative effects time was having on you.  Time retracts its claws.

 

 

When time disappears you are very happy. You already know how this feels.  When you are absorbed. When you are painting, playing the piano, planting, imagining, praying, meditating, there is no time but the endless, beloved present. Oh, that we could live there always!

 

 

And if we are always present in the present, what time is there? The past and the future, twin Pandora’s boxes containing all our ills, have melted away.

 

 

It becomes easier to let go of time when you acknowledge that you don’t know everything. Any situation you may be presently paying attention to, you cannot see everything about it. You do not know anyone’s motives.  All you know are the motives and attributes you have ascribed to the people you see in the situation, according to whatever story you are telling of it.  Why someone got divorced.  Why someone else can’t stop talking. Why they can’t have a baby.  Whatever the situation, you are only ever seeing your version of it.

 

 

You have all had that experience of being flummoxed by something that happened that you didn’t see coming. How could I have been so wrong? you wonder. How could I not have seen this?  You spend much time looking for clues.

You would never have that flummoxed, blindsided feeling if you remembered that you don’t know everything about any situation.  That would free you to say, “I never can see everything about a situation, so I’ll give up trying to categorize it. How can I help?”

 

Much time can be saved