I once read that an oak tree spends a hundred years growing, fifty years thriving, and another hundred years fading—91,250 sunrises in total. Meanwhile, I’ve spent this morning refreshing my inbox 37 times, sprinting through a drive-thru, and apologizing for being “just five minutes late” (again).
We rush. I rush. Late for meetings I scheduled, late for deadlines I set, late for the life I keep promising myself “when things slow down.” But they never do. Our world runs on artificial urgency: blinking notifications, back-to-back Zoom slots, productivity hacks that turn hours into hyper-efficient commodities.
Yet outside my window, the maple tree sheds its leaves on nature’s schedule—not because Q4 ended. Rivers don’t apologize for meandering. Moths emerge from cocoons when ready, not when added to a calendar invite.
The Tyranny of the Clock
The clock is a recent human invention. Before the Industrial Revolution, farmers planted by frosts and harvested by sunlight. Then factories demanded synchronized labor, and suddenly time became something to spend, waste, or optimize.
Last week, a barista with exhaustion-darkened eyes handed me coffee while explaining he’s taking 18 credits, working two jobs, and barely sleeping. “There’s just no time,” he muttered. He’s right—in the system we’ve built. We’ve turned time into a mined resource: extracted, measured in 15-minute increments, and depleted.
Nature’s Untimed Rhythm
Consider:
- Glaciers carve valleys over millennia, unhurried.
- Salmon follow ancestral routes without GPS alerts.
- Bears hibernate based on instinct, not Outlook reminders.
Unlike humans, nature doesn’t confuse speed with progress. A study in Nature Human Behaviour found that multitasking drops IQ by 15 points—worse than sleep deprivation. Our “efficiency” is often self-sabotage.
Relearning Time
Here’s what helps me:
- Seasons Over Schedules
Plan projects in 3-month cycles (like farming rotations), not daily to-do lists. - Digital Sunset
After 7 PM, my phone becomes a paperweight. The world keeps spinning. - The Tortoise Principle
My friend’s tortoise moves at 0.2 mph yet lives 150 years. Speed ≠ success.
Time isn’t a spreadsheet to manage. It’s the current we float in. Next time you check your watch, ask: Would the oak tree care?
