Our Relationship with Time

Time Obsession

Time and I have a chaotic relationship. Not always kind,

 but intimate, nonetheless. Across

some borders time feels

heavy, like

thick honey

dripping

 too slowly. Across

others, it disappears before I

even get the chance to look it in the eye. Sometimes

I wonder if time like water chooses the vessel it wants to fill.

Why does this thing occupy my brain?

Man is the only creature who spends his life running faster to catch up with time, only to discover he’s spent it all worrying about not having enough.

What is this thing we’re always trying to chase, manage, optimize, escape, mourn?
Why does it never behave, no matter how many apps and alarms we keep?

Before Calendars and Clocks

In the West, the words we choose to talk about time is often associated with money—something to be spent, saved, or wasted. But this wasn’t always the case.

In ancient Egypt, time was marked not by deadlines but by the rise of the Nile and the flowering of certain crops. Time was cyclical, bound to seasons and the stars. In many Indigenous traditions, time is not linear but relational—a web of past, present, and future coexisting.

Even in Arabic, we say “el waqt sayf”—time is a sword. Either you wield it or it cuts you. A strange violence embedded in how we speak of it.

And yet, in every culture, there is also the quiet—the tea that must steep, the stories that can only be told at dusk, the knowing that comes with waiting.

Moments met by Time

I’ve lived many lives inside this one. As an academic, an activist, a daughter. A consultant, a yogi, an immigrant. I’ve been soft. I’ve been sharp. And in each of those lives, time took a different shape.

When I left my PhD, time felt like a collapse—like everything I had invested in evaporated overnight. But it wasn’t lost. It just changed shape.

When a lover first enters my life, time slows to a crawl—in the sweetest way.

And when I’m back on my dad’s olive farm in Crete, I swear the air itself moves differently.
There, time becomes texture.

Some days I mourn all the versions of myself I didn’t have time to be.
Other days, I’m grateful for the ones I made room for.

Pause here with me

What does time feel like in your body right now?
Not the clock time—but your time.
Where does it stretch? Where does it tighten?
What would happen if you didn’t try to fix it?

Time is not

a taskmaster. It is a companion,

not always visible nor loud, but always

walks beside you. So take the long way home. Let the tea cool.
Send the message even if it's late. Time, my old friend, let’s walk together; hand in hand.