It’s my birthday and I’ve got a heart full o’Love!
My desire is to connect with you in the sweet space beyond time and place, in the timeless knowing that we’re on this big, beautiful earth together, and every other hippy-dippy goodness that comes to mind. Cheesy? Sure! Why not? Let loose the melty mozzarella, people. We’ve got nothing to lose…
And then I thought of you reading this. Wondering what space you’d be in. Amused and accepting of my dairy-silliness? Dispassionate and critical? Impatient and busy?
I thought, “what a bummer if she’s too busy to read this.” Because when we get excessively-busy, we lose touch of our experience of life. We lose touch of our sense of meaningfulness for what we’re doing. We lose the space for joy. We get burnt out or bored.
How awesome would a birthday wish be that helped you detach from the mindset of time-lack and brought you back to the spontaneity in the moment!
Hmmmm…
Oh Oh Oh!
I Got it!
Yes.
Sitting at the table after breakfast the other day with two of my housemates, one told us about an article he’d been reading about Kronos vs Kairos.
Kronos
Kronos is made up of the seconds, minutes, hours, days that march along relentlessly. The nature of it is quantitative. It’s the somewhat arbitrary structure onto which we’ve hung our society.
It keeps us meeting on time, agreeing on expectations via deadlines, containing our work sessions for productivity-sake. It’s what we lament when we cry out: Where has the time gone?!?! There. Is. Never. Enough.
Kairos
Kairos refers to experiencing a deeper awareness of the moment and acting accordingly. The nature of it is qualitative. It’s reflects our experience of life.
It’s the space in which we meet as humans, listen for which expectations are right and appropriate for a given situation. It’s when we get lost in a satisfying creativity session. While it refers to a form of time, it might better be understood as a space — It’s Where the yummy things are!
(This was the theme of my post-Burningman podcast episode last year. I didn’t have the term Kairos at that point, but that’s basically what it is.)
When the going gets Busy, you know which one gets left by the wayside. Ack!! But I don’t want to be a slave to Kronos!
Obviously they both have their place, but let’s face it, Kairos is definitely getting short shrifted. Being on-time — no matter what — has become more important than doing the Right thing at the Right time.
Especially as women, we’ve come to deny our cycles, our rhythms, our moods, our desires. We’ve been inculturated to believe that they are not to be a part of business. Hells No!
I want joy, flow and a sense of Right to be my experience of work!
2 issues here:
- To participate in the world, we need to play the Kronos game.
- Like the majority of us, I’m habituated to look at the calendar or the clock before checking in.
Can’t I have it all?!?
What to do? Let’s take this approach: we want to honor both Kairos and Kronos. We’ve already got Kronos down, so let’s give Kairos some extra TLC so that we can be in a better position to choose what’s appropriate in the moment. Instead of defaulting to following arbitrary timelines, we’ll come from a place of power and choice.
So how do we get back to Kairos? One way is to unplug. To wrench yourself away from that marching, relentless time structure that we’ve come to mistake for life.
Right there at the breakfast table with my housemates the wheels started spinning in my brain. I knew what I was going to ask for my birthday from my housemates: a day of Digital Sabbath.
Smart phones Off
Laptops: Closed
Clocks: Covered
The theme of the day: Listen in and go with what feels right
They loved the idea. What a fun way to spend a weekend day together (though, there’s entirely the possibility that what will feel right for some at various times is to spend time on their own — anything non-digital goes!)
And then I thought, Oooh! I want this for all natural professionals!!
And… It’s not as easy as just saying, “Hey, yo. You know all your obsessive and addictive digital tendencies? your beliefs that you don’t have time for this? your fears of losing connection with people so you just have to check in on Facebook? Yah, those. Just ignore them and get back into Experiential time.
It can be really hard to unplug. Habits are strong.
The Concept of the Digital Sabbath is for it to be a FUN day, not a day of fighting your addictive tendencies! With that in mind, support and P&P is where it’s at. (By the way, I just made up “P&P” — it’s Planning and Prep.)
So my gift to you, is a P&P guide. Then, as a bday gift back to me, you can tell me how it went! (The day after of course!)
Go now. Prep. Plan. Play.
And have a fantastic day — I already am just creating this for you!
XO
