Tick Tock

Years ago, I heard a very long-winded preacher say, “Time. Time! I’ve gotta have more time!” as he realized he was running out of time to finish his long sermon. I can identify with this frustration. I have a long list of things I want to accomplish before classes begin again. I have made progress on some of those things, but not many. Why? Do I not have enough time? Each day I have as much time as anyone else: 24 short hours. I have often said I need more than 24 hours in a day. Perhaps the earth could slow down its rotation around the sun. If I lived on Venus, a day would lasts 5,832 hours. Maybe then I could get everything done. Then I would have time to write my novel, turn my dissertation into a book, read the piles and piles of books I have, and spend more time playing with my cat, meet my friends for lunch or coffee more often, pay more attention to my husband, visit my parents, and talk to my children. Please note that I did not include housework in the list. I won’t ever have enough time for that!

Time is like money. There’s never enough if it for most of us. It seems though, that the more money one has, the more time they have. There are time-related perks to having lots of money. For example, if you have enough money so that you do not need to work or that you do not need to work full time, then  you have more time to do things you want to do. Teaching college classes takes a lot of time: time to prepare lessons for a full semester of classes, time to drive and walk to the classes, time to make copies of course material, time to teach the classes,  and time to answer questions after class, time to grade student work, and time to organize and do the paperwork required by each college. As adjuncts who make much less money than full time professors, we must teach more classes in more places for less money and spend more time.

I recall a Twilight Zone episode titled, “Time Enough at Last,” in which a man named Henry Bemis who passionately loves reading books, but whose wife and others in his life prevent him from having the time to read.  When he realizes that he is the lone survivor a nuclear  apocalypse, he finds a library and realizes that, at last, he has the time  to do all the reading he has desired. And then, he breaks his thick glasses, which required a complicated prescription, that he needs for reading. Now he has the time, but not the means to read. I often fear that by the time of my life when I will have more time for the reading and writing that I desire, that I will lose the capacity for it. I think of all the things I plan to do when I “get around to it.” Will I ever be able to do them? Perhaps not. This makes me sad and depressed.

Again, time is like money. Could I spend my time more wisely and not waste any of it? Probably. Inertia sets in sometimes when I finally have an hour or two to accomplish something I want to do, but the hour or two has soon passed before I have even begun. Can I save time? Not really. I doubt that I can take that half an hour I have between classes on Monday and Tuesday and write a novel in half hour slots. Half an hour is enough time to think about what I want to write and take notes, but not to actually write. I must have quiet and no interruptions in order to write. However, if I could add up all those in between minutes and half hours and use them in an 8 hour window, then I might be able to write a chapter or a short story.

How much time do we have? No one really knows. We are not promised another hour, nor another day. I often fear I might die before I write my novels and my book on Dallas Women and the Ku Klux Klan. If, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests, it requires approximately 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. To have time to write for 10,000 hours, I would certainly have to spend almost 2 days on Venus, yet it would take 110 days just to get to Venus. Even if I finished the Spring semester by May 15 and had the whole summer off from teaching, I would still need 3 more days to get to Venus. In the meantime, far more than 2 days would pass on earth before my two days were up on Venus so I don’t see how I can master my writing at the rate I’m practicing it now.

I also fear I may never get to read all the books I want to read. It is probably impossible for me to read all the books I want to read because I want to read ALL the books. I have given up time to sleep in order to read many times. I would rather read than eat at times and I surely would rather read than work. My ideal job would be to get paid to read and write great literature rather than spending my time reading freshman English composition essays, plus grading and commenting on them. In most cases, I probably spend more time reading the essays and commenting on them than my students spend writing them. I fear reading these quickly tossed off, badly written pages of drivel is going to cause me brain damage. I confess that there are some student essays that are interesting and well written, but those are a minority of the 32-36 pages of writing I have to read and grade for each student in one semester. I wish that I had as much time to read good books as I spend grading papers.

Ultimately,  I spend more time doing things I do not enjoy and do not want to do, than I spend doing the things I want to do. Whenever I do take the time to read or write, I feel like I have stolen the time because there are so many more things I need to do instead of doing the things I want to do. Two or three Christmases ago, my son asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told him I wanted more time, more time to write and to read and to enjoy life. I am sure that if he could have given me that gift that he would have. Since it was a gift he could not give me, he drew a poster of a clock and a peaceful scene and symbols of time representing what I wanted. This was a special gift I treasure as is all of the time I am given.

I just wish I had more time. Beam me up to Venus, Scotty!

Dr. Laura Mohsene