Creating Space Of Time

Whether you are a teenager on your game console, an executive on the corporate ladder or a mother with attention seeking children, it’s not hard to create the perception of being under pressure.

It’s all magnified and turbocharged by the information age which provides instant access to the latest games, the latest corporate moves and the latest mothering techniques etc. all streaming to a computer, mobile or television near you. If the last generation felt the pressure to perform, then this generation feels the pressure to perform and achieve more, and the upcoming generation feels the pressure to perform, achieve and cram.

Intense ‘time consumption’ taken up by ‘information processing’ then generates the feeling of a ‘time famine’. We allow the empty, quiet and reflective spaces that used to punctuate our lives to be squeezed out by more activities as we increasingly surrender our attention to ever more varied sources of electronic stimulation.

This shrinking of time and space is most visibly seen and invisibly felt when we act and interact with others. As we feel the pressure to act faster, action becomes reaction and reaction becomes habit. How often have you created an awkward situation because you let the words just tumble out or the emotion just erupt?

Whenever we react instead of respond, it means we have ‘collapsed’ the natural space in our consciousness between receiving/perceiving the event and our action in response. To react is to allow conditioned habits to take us over and shape our thoughts, feelings and actions. When this happens, it’s usually a combination of laziness and lack of awareness.

It is lazy because it’s easier to react than create a considered response.