Living on Pandemic Time

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I once met a guy who said he lost his sophomore year of college spaced out on the concept of time. I think drugs were involved.

Though there are no drugs involved, the pandemic is messing with my sense of time.

I have a coaching practice where I meet via ZOOM with clients once a month or every two weeks. Lately, when I see them, it feels like it’s been forever since we last met.

At the same time, I’m trying to figure out how it’s August already. I once heard someone say the days are long, but the years are short. The last three months have taken that to the extreme. This can increase anxiety and make it harder to self-regulate in challenging situations.

My guess is that my experience is not uncommon. I think it has something to do with the fact that nothing is normal, and everything seems harder. According to Scientific American your brain encodes new experiences into memory (but not familiar ones). This will make the time spent doing new things seem longer than time spent going through a normal routine.

The experience of time has always been a relative thing. Remember how long summer seemed when you were a kid? Most people acknowledge that time seems to go faster the older you get. My college friends and I developed a theory we called the increasing denominator theory of aging. Every year you experience as you age is a smaller fraction of your total life experience. For example, when you are four, one year is a quarter of your entire life. When you are 50, it’s 1/50. It’s a theory.

Anyway, my experience of pandemic time made me realize that I needed to give myself a break. I’m not able to do the same things or do things the same way as I did just four months ago. Early March was literally and figuratively another lifetime and we’re not going back anytime soon.

Context matters. And our current context is just plain difficult. So, as a leader, give yourself a break. Do the same for others. Accept that things are not easy and that it’s going to take time and effort for us to turn things around. Focus on what’s important, even if it’s not urgent.

Last weekend our grandson turned three. We planned a small, outdoor family gathering to celebrate. It was also my weekend to write a blog post since I send them out every two weeks. I was feeling time pressure to get it done, but I also wanted to focus on being with the people that matter most to me. So I punted.

I realized that in the larger scheme of things, three weeks between blog posts wouldn’t be that big a deal. I gave myself a break, relaxed, and stayed present in the moment. I’m glad I did.

And, let’s be honest, you didn’t really notice how long it’s been since my last blog post. It felt like a year, didn’t it?

The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as executive director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Maryland.  This post is republished with permission from his blog The Non-Anxious Leader.