And the time is..

After two weeks off from work, starting the new working year on 3 Jan 2006 was such a drag – literally. How my body would slowly roll to the side, drag my legs to hang at the side of the bed and then my arms, with an indescribable strength, will throw off the blanket in one quick move, allowing the cold morning air freeze my body and mind to finally wake up and get ready for work. Work!!

And I had just return from a holiday in Hawaii so finally starting work once again was really tougher than how it sounds in the paragraph above.

Talking about my mornings, everyday at 7.10am my alarm clock will start ringing. A press of a button to turn it off and 20 more minutes of utterly appreciated semi-conscious shut-eye. A ‘treat’ of sorts, as my alarm clock is timed 20 minutes faster; likewise, my handphone’s time is 10 minutes faster, wallclock is 25 minutes ahead and my watch and laptop is faster by 5 minutes.

Naturally, my mind tells me to look at different clocks whenever there is a nagging feeling that screams it really IS time to wake up, ok!. A simple subtraction would place all my time to point to exactly the same and correct time of the morning but in the reluctant and sleep-induced state, whichever clock that shows (or fools me to think) that I still have time, is an indulgence that is much too eloquent to be put into words.

Talking to some friends the other day on this personal modification of our time-tellers, this seems to be increasingly common for a variety of reasons.

One friend has put 6 minutes faster in all her clocks, as it gives her the commonly-felt comfort among us guilty time-manipulators that there is still time, we are still early or i surprise me with my time-management! I often forget that many minutes have been added and the sudden revelation that there’s still time to spare, is worth the rushing around to finish things up just a few minutes earlier.

How is it that we know that we had added minutes to our time-tellers but still ‘forget’ and work/live just a bit faster as if we were late?

Another friend’s watch is exactly an hour and 10 minutes faster, the fastest I know of yet. During long, dull meetings, he will roll up his sleeves and casually flash his watch around – the track record of people adjourning the meeting earlier is amazing. Never mind if they have watches of their own, perhaps it is a subconscious buzz in the brain that says, what!? it’s 8pm already!? oh hang on, his watch is fast by an hour! but oh well, it’s time this meeting end anyway. adjourn! And I honestly would try anything, if it means there is a shot at getting any meeting to end faster.

And of course, there are some who work the other way – this friend’s time is 15 minutes later just so it will panic him enough to hurry up. Everyday is a rush, with the typical i’m late!‘s. I’m not sure I want to live my life knowing that I am late, and this one really means late, not in the tricking-myself-to-think-I-am-late way.

Another matter altogether when one day, a well-meaning parent changed all the time-tellers to the correct time and the following morning’s chaos of confusion and sinking realisation that came soon after… but that’s another story for another day. 🙂

So for the new year, here’s to all of us time-manipulators (you know who you are!) and all others, to more time to spare! *clink