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Time anxiety: is it too late?

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Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#131

Post by coldtea »

>Dr. Alex Lickerman, the author of The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, says that time anxiety stems from some of the following questions: “Am I creating the greatest amount of value with my life that I can? Will I feel, when it comes my time to die, that I spent too much of my time frivolously?”

Even before that, time anxiety stems from the idea that we're put here to do X thing or achieve Y thing, and not e.g. just enjoy life.

While the notion is ancient, many cultures don't really have time anxiety to any degree to write home about. It's more common in the US than in Europe, for example, and perhaps goes with the "winners and losers" view of society as some kind of race.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#132

Post by coldtea »

chubbyrabbit wrote: post #125
nexuist wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like your description of Facebook is what all the employees who worked on it circa 2004 were envisioning it would become. It seemed so groundbreaking yet so serene. A brand new way to do the same things. I wish we could have all the good without the bad, but I suppose that's what makes this field so insanely hard.

It's just like most things in life: It's good if you consume the right amount.

...and ignore the externalities...

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#133

Post by e_proxus »

chubbyrabbit wrote: post #125
nexuist wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like your description of Facebook is what all the employees who worked on it circa 2004 were envisioning it would become. It seemed so groundbreaking yet so serene. A brand new way to do the same things. I wish we could have all the good without the bad, but I suppose that's what makes this field so insanely hard.

It's just like most things in life: It's good if you consume the right amount.

The platform has also changed. Now it is ad-infested and algorithmically crushed in the pursuit of profit to something which actually discourages these interactions.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#134

Post by bennyelv »

avinium wrote: post #130
pier25 wrote: post #24

I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s. In a way I was right. I'm 40 now and the things that seemed of extreme importance in my 20s are mostly gone now. In retrospect it's not that I wouldn't be able to do those things, but maybe I feared tha…

> I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s. I had the same feeling in my 20s. I'm now in my 30s, and the biggest regret I have in life is that I lost a relationship because I needed to "accomplish something before I ran out of time". Even thoug…

The feeling of regret about a past decision is an odd one to me.

It's based on the premise that you know with some certainty what would have happened had you taken the opposite choice. That premise is false, you have no idea what would have happened if you had done things differently. Your life could be terrible, your life could be better. You have no way of knowing.

I believe the best treatment for it is to make sure you find satisfaction in your current situation. If you have that, then you never regret previous decisions. At least that's how it works for me!

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#135

Post by tagirb »

I think this anxiety comes from deep inside of me reminding that I've lost myself in that moment. It helps to just stop doing whatever I am doing, shut off my mind, turn to myself, and re-establish the connection with my inner self, which I tend to loose sometimes in the everyday hectic.

And what also helps me to retain and to strengthen this connection is simply love. Basically, to replace the negative thoughts, ambitions, etc. with truly positive values and things, to start caring about the people around, doing something good for the others without expecting anything in exchange and many other good things, which I'd never thought of before.

The books here have helped me to make the first step back then and are still helping me to stay on this way:

https://allatra-book.org/

Hope they help someone else as well.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#136

Post by birdyrooster »

When I was a student, I had no concept of time anxiety and would spend endless hours creating games on my Mac or playing with musical instruments. I ignored my school work and my grades suffered, but not my hobbies.

In adulthood, with a full time job and no desire to derail my possible retirement with dignity, I find that the time has really passed on many endeavors. I won't be a full time musician and I am mentally exhausted after work so I won't be a part time musician either. My employers, even ones which are kind and flexible, get the lions share of my productive value. What I do have is some disposable income and so I end up becoming a mindless consumer for the rest of my time after work.

I have hope for change in the future, but it's not looking better after changing employers several times and growing ten years older.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#137

Post by kevinguh »

lonelappde wrote: post #87
kevinguh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add on by saying from personal experience that the wider your breadth of experiences, the more you find that experiences in seemingly unrelated fields overlap and synergize to make it even easier to pick up new skills. Anecdotally I found my background in software + college coursework in signal processing gave me a huge boost with getting into music production, and in line with the ROI perspective I feel like…

Sure but a course in the science of music production isn't unrelated to music production.

Right, and the example is meant to illustrate that. My coursework on signal processing approached it from a mathematical and computational perspective, so I didn't necessarily have an appreciation for its application in a music context. Once I picked up music production and started dealing with filters and EQs and all, though, the relationship then became apparent pretty quickly and certainly helped with understanding how all the effect processing worked.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#138

Post by kevinguh »

jimstr wrote: post #85
kevinguh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add on by saying from personal experience that the wider your breadth of experiences, the more you find that experiences in seemingly unrelated fields overlap and synergize to make it even easier to pick up new skills. Anecdotally I found my background in software + college coursework in signal processing gave me a huge boost with getting into music production, and in line with the ROI perspective I feel like…

The book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range argues a lot for this as well, and goes on to discuss numerous examples where generalists have made the breakthroughs and/or excelled in some way, due to synergy, overlap and inspiration.

Thanks for the link, the to-read list never seems to stop growing but that book certainly sounds like one I'll have to add

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#139

Post by avinium »

bennyelv wrote: post #134
avinium wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s. I had the same feeling in my 20s. I'm now in my 30s, and the biggest regret I have in life is that I lost a relationship because I needed to "accomplish something before I ran out of time". Even thoug…

The feeling of regret about a past decision is an odd one to me. It's based on the premise that you know with some certainty what would have happened had you taken the opposite choice. That premise is false, you have no idea what would have happened if you had done things differently. Your life could be terrible, your life could be better. You have no way of knowing. I believe the best treatment for it is to make sur…

Logically, you could be completely correct. Had I taken the other path, I may well be sitting here today saying "I massively regret not giving myself enough space to achieve".

And you're right, finding satisfaction on your chosen path is really the only way to deal with these types of emotions.

But all that being said, I'll fight tooth and nail to stop my kids from making the same mistake I did.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#140

Post by baby »

rland wrote: post #51

The single consistent thing I have noticed in dealing with this type of anxiety is that if I spend time with people I actually like being with, it completely disappears. It's impossible to be so self-directed if there is another person in the room who I care about or love. To that end, the fix is simple: surround myself with people that I love. Friends and family. Easier said then done, especially in our modern world…

But then isn't it reverse time anxiety? You become scared of not being able to spend more time with them.
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