I am very fortunate. I have been blessed with many opportunities in life. Opportunities that my former self would not even have dared to dream of. I have been fortunate enough to embark on many passion projects, some of which I have even gotten paid for!
I do not take this for granted and as my journey to becoming a licensed clinical psychologist is nearing its half-way point, I am reflecting on what the concept of time really means. Time is not a renewable resource; once its passed, time is lost… or is it?
I am reminded of a quote from the hit Netflix show BoJack Horseman:
Alright, believe it or not, time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward.
– Joseph Sugarman
What Joseph Sugarman is elegantly hinting at is the inevitability of the passing of time, but this quote also carries more psychological significance than would appear at first glance.
Is time ever really lost?
Whether time is every truly lost depends on a few factors. First and foremost, it depends on how you define “lost”. For instance, the present moment may pass but our memory of it may never fade away. If we experience something, whether good or bad, and we remember it for the rest of our lives, did we ever really lose that experience?
I would argue not. Our memories profoundly impact our daily lives and some might even say that our declarative memory capacity is the very thing that distinguishes us from other animals.
If we couldn’t remember our prior experiences, we would never be able to learn from them deeply
Another viewpoint could be that for people content in the present moment, time is never lost. If you’re in the here-and-now, you are at least not ruminating about the past. You don’t have that nagging feeling best summed up by the phrase “could’ve-should’ve-would’ve”.
What’s more is that if you’re focused in on the present moment, mindfully appreciating it for what is is, you’re not anxiously anticipating the future either. Instead you’re mindful of the present moment, appreciating it for the gift it is.
You just are… here-and-now
So then, is time ever really lost?
Maybe… but maybe not.
What should I then do with my time?
Let’s assume time is lost for a moment.
If our time is truly lost after it passes, if times arrow neither stands still nor reverses but merely marches forward, how can we make the most of it?
Interestingly enough, I’d wager that it becomes even more important to mindfully pay attention to the present moment!
When we practice mindfulness, we allow our minds to take in the entirety of the moment we are currently experiencing. This means that we are not ruminating about the past nor anxiously anticipating the future. Instead, we simply allow ourselves to experience ourselves and our environment non-jugmentally and for what it is. This also means that we get to experience more of life, because if time is fleeting away from us, moment by moment, second by second, we are not productively spending it if we are fixated on past events or anxiously await the future.
However, some some caveats to this are in order.
When is it appropriate to have a future orientation?
Obviously, we cannot always be in the present moment. We can’t just simply shirk our responsibilities and do nothing. We need to pay our bills, take care of ourselves, and care for our loved ones. I’d even say we have a responsibility to continually engage in personal development, and to do so we need goals.
I’ll get to goals in a moment, but the list of responsibilites each of us has hardly comes as a surprise to anyone. These are things we all do on a daily basis in one way or another.
Going to work or going to school can be collapsed under our responsibility to pay our bills. Going grocery shopping and cleaning our house can be collapsed under caring for ourselves and our loved ones. Even napping can be an example of self-care (and as a corollary, caring for others! Because who likes being around cranky and tired people?). Finally, going to the gym, reading an interesting book, or watching a thought-provoking documentary are all examples of activities that might contribute to our personal development.
Like I said, none of these activities comes as a surprise to anyone, and all of them require a degree of planning. And planning is, by definition, a future-oriented activity.
But this is not what I was referring to when I noted that sometimes it is appropriate to be temporally oriented in the future, at least for a little while.
Savouring positive emotions
There is interesting research from the field of positive psychology that suggests that one way to prolong a positive emotional experience is to savour it (for a foundational paper on this topic, see Fredrickson, 2001).
Savouring, contrary to what one might assume, does not only take place during the experience in question. Instead, it should be construed as a process that begins long before the actual experience begins.
How you might ask? Through anticipation!
You can savour positive emotions by anticipating positive experiences
To understand why, let’s define two key terms: incentive reward and consummatory reward (for a review, see DeYoung, 2013).
Different types of rewards
Incentive rewards refer to a dopaminergic signal that you are approaching a valued goal. In other words, an incentive reward is the good feeling you experience when you feel like you have made progress or are approaching something of value.
By contrast, consummatory rewards refer to a dopaminergic signal that a goal has been attained. Put simply, it’s the feeling of accomplishment when a goal is actually attained. Other examples of consummatory rewards include the dopamine spike you get when eating a cake or having a shot of alcohol. Eating a cake feels great… for a moment, but that feeling is not long lasting.
What’s interesting about incentive rewards is that they produce much stronger pleasant feelings, per unit of reward, that last longer than consummatory rewards.
Incentive rewards are stronger and longer lasting than consummatory rewards
Now, how does this relate to savouring?
Simply put, when we are anticipating a positive experience, we are constantly getting blasted with incentive rewards; the signals that we are approaching a valued goal. A great way to make the most of this is, therefore, to share our anticipation with someone we care for so they can join in on the joy!
Therefore, we should make a habit of sharing our future anticipations with people we care about!
However, this means that we are operating within a future-oriented mindset, but in this case it is having a net-positive effect on our present moment well-being and happiness.
What about the goals?
I intend to tackle goals in a separate post, but I want to give a few words of advice on goal-setting as a prelude.
The most important thing when it comes to goal-setting is specificity. In particular, make sure your goal is specific enough for you to know whether or not you are approaching it and that you know when you’ve attained it.
For instance, if my goal was to “feel better”, I’d have no actual way of knowing what variables are appropriate for me to use (other than maybe a subjective feeling, which I highly advice against using as a barometer for progress!) and I’d have no safeguard against my own cognitive biases.
A better goal that still aims at the same construct could be to “speak with a loved one once per day and exercise at least three times per week”. I can count the number of times I speak to my loved ones and I can also count the number of days per week I go to the gym. If my definition of “feeling better” includes having quality relationships with my loved ones and being physically fit, this new goal formulation is much better because I can actually measure my progress on a weekly basis.
Actionable summary
I started this post by calling into question whether time is ever truly lost. My conclusion is that whether it is or isn’t, it doesn’t matter. Either way, your best bet is to practice mindfully engaging in the present moment.
I also noted that sometimes it is appropriate to orient your attention to the future. Most notably, whenever you have set a valued goal or are looking forward to a pleasant event, savour it by allowing yourself to anticipate it and tell your friends about it! Let them share your joy and allow yourself to experience the joy of anticipation.
Finally, if you do set goals, make them specific enough so you know when you are making progress!
References
DeYoung, C. G. (2013). The neuromodulator of exploration: A unifying theory of the role of dopamine in personality. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00762
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1037%2F%2F0003-066x.56.3.218
Image reference
DALL·E. (2024). Hyper-realistic representation of time’s forward motion based on the prompt: “time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses; it merely marches forward” [Digital image]. Created for user request on OpenAI ChatGPT.
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