....... vs Time

“Remember, Time is a greedy player who wins without cheating, every round!” writes Baudelaire in his poem “The Clock” (1). Is this the true nature of time? Or is it only one of the possible ways to consider time? And more generally speaking, why do people have such a problem in the way they relate to time? Where does it come from, this anxiety that we’ve all experienced at the thought that “time is slipping away”?

.....anyone who’s taken on the challenge of attempting to define time in and of itself and the relationship between people and time has always been forced to admit defeat.

If we try to measure ourselves against the passage of time, we feel inadequate, oppressed, enslaved, defeated, more and more with every second that goes by. We lose our élan vital (3), our vital contact, which enables us to accomplish things. “Two hours have gone by and I’m still not done; two days have gone by and I’m still not done.” In a moment of weakness, the purpose of the activity at hand is often no longer even clear. The succession of events, instead, seems to be the less anxiety-ridden aspect of time. At times it may even represent the regular succession of activity, a calm-inducing rhythm.

  ---------------The Pomodoro Technique  (page 3)