E Squared by Pam Grout — Experiment #9

I don’t want to give away too much in Pam Grout’s fabulous book, so I’m going to make the conclusion of this last experiment somewhat vague. The premise behind the last experiment in E Squared by Pam Grout is to prove that life is not, in fact, as hard as we like to believe that it is.

Life is Stressful Because There’s Not Enough Time

This is actually a concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past several weeks. With everything that I want to accomplish in my life, I find it extremely easy to become overwhelmed with feelings of lack. Overwhelmed with the passing of time and how a year can pass by like nothing.

But then, I started thinking about play time. You remember play time? I’m talking about that thing we used to do when we were kids. I don’t know why this specific memory stands out in my mind, but it does. I remember being five years old and playing with my best friend Kendra. I remember my mom telling us that we had an hour before we had to leave… an ENTIRE hour. I mean, that was an absolute ETERNITY to my five year old self. But then, as we get older, adults start to tell us things like “time may feel like it’s going slowly now, but once you get older it will start flying by.” It’s once of those damaging affirmations that we plant in each other’s minds. We plant it there, and then we let it grow until their reality also becomes ours, and time, indeed, does start flying by.

But then, we want it to fly by. While at work, aren’t we constantly looking at the clock and willing time to go by faster? While in line, aren’t we always tapping our feet and counting the people ahead of us? Aren’t we constantly calculating how much time this will take? I totally fall into the trap of living my life in terms of hours. I fill my day full of appointments, but then instead of being present at each appointment, I start thinking about the one coming up next… or about how good it’s going to feel to relax in front of the TV at the end of the day.

THE TV! The BIGGEST of time suckers. You plug yourself in, and all of a sudden 2 hours have passed in a sedentary, mouth opened, eyes glazed over state of semi-consciousness. Seriously! Check out this youtube video on How Television Affects Your Brain Chemistry.  In this short, disconcerting video, they explain how TV works by fracturing your attention while condensing and accelerating time. Our “regular” time seems slow by comparison.

“Scarcity and lack is our default setting, the unquestioned conditioning that defines our lives.” – E Squared Excerpt

Why Does Time Feel Like it Passes Quickly?

Here’s my theory. I think time feels like it’s passing by quickly because of those things we still haven’t done yet. There are so many things that, month after month, I feel incredibly ashamed that I STILL haven’t done (I recently made a list of nagging tasks and I’ve been crossing them off one by one). When 3 months have passed and I still haven’t started a solid flossing habit, it sort of feels like time is escaping my grasp.

I think it’s probably incredibly easy to allow time to go by quickly. You just have to exist. But, if you want time to move slowly, and if you want to feel fulfilled by time, then you have to commit to your life. You have to commit to being awake, aware and happy. Time moves at a delicious pace when you’re happy and excited by life. When you’re working toward something you want, and when you can look back and admire your progress.

“I realized that I had quit at everything, and I made a vow never to give up on myself again. I realized that if I didn’t take the initiative and rewire myself I would end up being like so many people I knew who never committed themselves to anything and just took any job they could get and stayed there forever. Be bold. Don’t be afraid. Trust your instincts. If you quit you’ll never find out what could have happened.” – George Lopez, from The Best Advice I Ever Got

The Experiment

This is not the actual experiment from the book. Her experiment has more to do with what Shawn Achor explains in his book The Happiness Advantage.

Instead, for this experiment, I have opted to actually start working on the thing that I find myself constantly putting off. That thing is learning how to sing.

Although I’ve been in voice lessons now since August 2013, and although I did practice, I recently had to step back and acknowledge where I was letting myself down. I wasn’t fully committing. I was practicing on average 3 times a week, but my practice time was usually combined with some other task. I was practicing for the sake of practicing, but I didn’t actually have a goal. There was nothing that I was working toward – primarily because I thought that developing the ability to sing was something that was impossible. I was weighed down by my belief that singing was something you were either good at as a child, or not. I didn’t think it was a skill I could learn.

One month ago I decided that this belief was no longer serving me. I wanted to sing! So, for the past month I have practiced EVERY DAY for 45 minutes to an hour. In one month of showing up I have observed incredible improvements in my voice. INCREDIBLE!

What’s more? I actually LOVE my singing sessions now. In the beginning is was really hard to motivate myself to lock myself in my room for an hour and to concentrate only on playing with my voice. There was so much that I had to do, that setting aside 45 minutes a day felt like such an inconvenience… but I did it and I continue to do it. This is something that I want, and spending that time will get me closer to my goal every day.

Has there ever been a moment in your life where you thought: “Wow, if I did this every day, IMAGINE where I could be one year from now?” I challenge you to choose one of those things and start doing it now. Improvements might be slow, but at least you will be working toward it.

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
– Bill Gates

Thank you for reading the last post in my E Squared Experiments.

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