A lot of times, a sense of purpose can help you feel more fulfilled. Most experts agree that having a sense of purpose is crucial for mental and physical wellbeing, giving you a positive view of yourself and the direction you’re heading in. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes, feeling like you don’t have a purpose can manifest in time-keeping behavior.
Why does this happen? You might keep time because you feel like everything you’re doing will waste since you have no sense of direction from a purpose. You wonder what you’re doing here and why you’re doing it, or if there’s any point at all. This lends itself to feelings of depression and even a desire to withdraw and stop trying at all because of how hopeless it seems.
Ironically, time-keeping to the point of depression can prevent you from finding your purpose. Understanding that you may find your purpose later in life will help you to feel comfortable with living each day at the moment instead of worrying that it’s being wasted with each minute.
5. You Think Life Is A Race
Life is a varying thing, and everyone experiences it differently. When you keep time, you tend to forget about how unique and individual your life can and should be allowed to be. This means that you might think life is a race that you either have to win or catch up to in time, which isn’t true. Here are some signs that keeping time is holding you back by making you believe that life is a race:
· You Feel You’ve Missed Your Chances
You think that certain milestones in life have age limits. For example, if you didn’t finish university by the age of thirty, you think it’s too late for you ever to get a degree.
Or if you never got to learn to play the piano and you’ve now discovered you love it at the age of fifty. But you feel that it’s too late to bother.
Perhaps you think you’re too old to rock colored hair, find love, or learn a skill that young people enjoy. These kinds of thoughts are inaccurate! In life, there is no point at which you are cut off from specific experiences. There are no pre-set turnoff points for different paths and opportunities. So don’t be held back by such ideas that diminish positive thinking.
· You Compare Yourself To Others
Keeping time can make you view your accomplishments, milestones, and successes against other people’s, judging your journey by how well you measure up to theirs. You compare your victories to the victories of others and are less interested in seeking your path or taking things at your own pace. This mindset is counterproductive because it means you compare your actual, full version of yourself and all your opposing sides against the positive views others present themselves to the world.
You don’t know why someone is going faster or slower than you. Besides, it’s not fair to try and “beat” them in a race that only you are running in. And, of course, that kind of thinking means you feel bad when you succeed at a slower rate and become complacent when you grow more quickly.
· Your Successes Feel Less Significant
If your successes come after other people’s, you may feel that this diminishes the positive outcome you’ve achieved. You wind up downplaying your abilities and treating your good victories as subjects of underwhelming necessity. You may even become ashamed of them if you were “slow” to achieve them!
· You Make Impulsive Mistakes
Impulsive behavior is often harmful to your wellbeing, and studies have shown that it is linked to not just decreased positive thinking but multiple mental disorders and conditions that are risky. When you think life is a race and you’re running out of time for certain milestones, you are likely to make impulsive decisions to reach the turnoff point that you think exists.
For example, if you feel you need to be married by the time you’re 30, you may quickly rush to marry someone at the age of 29. Indeed, you might make this move even if they’re not suitable for you.
· You Become Overwhelmed
When you think you’re running out of time to reach a particular milestone in the fake race of life you envision, you can become overwhelmed. You think you have limited time. So you feel the need to rush. But that only serves to make it harder for you to achieve any positive goals at all!
It’s good to manage your time, but there’s a difference between positively using time instead of it holding you back. Instead of ironically wasting your time on keeping time, focus on living your life one moment at a time and don’t let everything you do be dictated by the clock and calendar.