Deadlines.

Pink Floyd. Gandalf the Grey.

Like a certain white rabbit, I usually find myself running behind. I’d like to be on time, but as they say, if you’re not early...

The problem is all these deadlines I give myself. The demarcation of time inevitably leads to a greater awareness as it passes me by. So setting a deadline is as much an act of hope as it is an attempt at organization. They’re arbitrary, after all—lines in sand no one can see. The finish line at the end of an invisible race. It doesn’t guarantee I’ll make it. But without a good deadline, it’s easy to miss the starting gun altogether. 

The deadline is an attempt to make the insubstantial consequential. Unfortunately, this often turns them into a kind of threat: finish, or else. No better example than the most infamous deadline of them all: the countdown on a timebomb. Holding the future hostage is one surefire way to streamline your productivity in the present. At least in theory.

Time looks a lot different on the other side of the line. Even if the past is just the future with the lights on. We trade in our deadlines for timelines, measuring our lives as they unspool behind us: How we spent the past year. How long we’ve been here; how long we have left. How long a relationship lasts. But the units aren’t equal, the equations inform us—no, time is relative (unless you’re a beam of light, of course). How much there is depends on how much you are; like any other faculty of perception, illusions abound. (That full video is really worth a watch—if you have the time, that is.)

Take care not to waste away the hours. Your time is a precious thing, an endangered species. And killing time comes with other casualties. Because every moment is one you’ll never get back. Like the hourglass suggests, time is always running out… until it begins again. There’s one deadline we all share. Until then, it’s up to us to decide what to do with the time we’ve been given.