Episode 4: Time

In this episode Eddie & Aneesh contemplate Time and how they strive for work-life balance. They discuss 'On The Shortness of Life' by the stoic philosopher Seneca.

Dedication: For my dad. Until we meet again. Love you, pop.  -Eddie

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Transcript

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Aneesh:   0:00
So, uh, I'm gonna ask you again, Eddie. How much time do we have?  

Eddie:   0:04
Like, five minutes?  

Aneesh:   0:05
I think the answer to that question is, we don't know.  We don't know how much time we have.

Eddie:   0:10
Yeah right.  

Eddie:   0:20
Hey, guys, welcome to resiliency rounds. Our discussion today is going to be about Time. To embark on a process of resiliency building,  if you don't address time as one of those key components, you're really missing out on a huge part of that. Um, and so early in our discussions, you enlightened me, quite a bit, on some of the readings that you have done on a stoic philosopher in particular, right?  

Aneesh:   0:48
Yeah, that's correct. So, uh, I'm gonna ask you again, Eddie. How much time do we have?  

Eddie:   0:53
Like five minutes?  

Aneesh:   0:54
The answer to that question is we don't know. We don't know how much time we have, Right? I heard about a book called, On The Shortness of Life, by a Roman philosopher Seneca and when I read it, it immediately got me thinking about how much time I had wasted and how I needed to be better. And the minute I read this book, I wanted everybody I loved to read this book. And that's why I gave you my copy of the book because I wanted you to read it. And here's the beautiful part about it.  

Eddie:   1:34
So you gave me the book because you cared about me.  

Aneesh:   1:36
That's exactly right.  

Eddie:   1:37
Which I should add, that book scared the hell out of me.  

Aneesh:   1:39
Oh, you know, that's what I was trying to get to, of all the people whom I gave the book to and had them read it, you were the only one who had that same visceral reaction to it, and I thought everybody would have the same reaction to it, and they did. Everybody has this individual way of kind of dealing with what they find out. And I think, you and me have gone through this process of introspection and our minds are open and we are okay to accept the fact that we have made this mistake. But more than that, you're ready to now change our lives so that we are not gonna waste any more time.  

Eddie:   2:19
Yeah, there is value in studying the nature of time. That's one thing I would say. A lot of us come to issues of time when we're feeling extremely stressed out and overwhelmed. And I think all of us who are dealing with that correctly attribute some of that to a sense, a deficiency, a poverty of time. And so we're very interested in understanding how we can manage that better. So there's kind of this 'Macro' time management, um, question within our hearts, many times, whenever we're in the depths of something like that. But then there is also practical applications so there's a 'Micro' question to that, too, on how you manage your day to day business. And at the end of this discussion, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the strategies that you and I have discovered that we found very helpful.  

Aneesh:   3:14
Yeah, so I like your statement when you said that, you know there is. There is two aspects to this time management. There is this macro time management and a micro time management. If they came to this podcast thinking that we're gonna talk about how to be efficient in the clinic setting, that is not what we're talking about. Now that is important, don't get me wrong. Um, but we are talking about time in the macro sense. And that's what the shortness of life is also about, its time in the macro sense. Yes, we will talk about certain techniques that we can use on a day to day basis to allow for that, to allow for a more enriched life. But I want us to, where we discuss about this, to kind of think about it from that macro perspective, because that's where it gets really profound. The book didn't speak to me because it told me that I needed to get more efficient in clinic. But before I start, I want to tell you that the shortness of life is like 41 pages. It's a very brief. It's a very brief book. It just like the name sake, you know, Seneca is not going to waste your time.  

Eddie:   4:16
That's right.  

Aneesh:   4:17
So I encourage everyone read it. I've personally given gifted this book to people I care and love about, and I think everybody should should read it once.  

Eddie:   4:27
So have a listen to our discussion. Ah, we, one of our early conversations was about this book and how, um, we interpreted it and how, What? Meaning we drew from it and we will circle back around with you, as always at the end of this conversation, to give you some take home points, and we will actually add some pointers regarding things that we've done in our own life to improve our maximization of time.

Eddie:   4:56
So what were we talking about? Seneca's On the shortness of life. So then time should be looked at as, not just the most precious commodity, but really the only commodity that matters. He talks about the difference between living life and just existing, and he talks about how many people exist but they're not actually living because essentially, they're wasting their time. He cautions the reader to be very guarded with your time, to look at it, and he uses, actually very sort of almost desperate language like, you should scrap for it, like you should not give up any of your time, and you should be really, really stingy with your time. Or you will keep you wondering what you did about your time. So he talked about the lament of people who were at the end of their life. So then my question is, how do you know if you're embarking on something that's a waste of your time, you know. I mean, so? Right. No pun intended, or maybe pun is intended. So how do you, how do you become a good steward of your time? To put it in his words where you are living a wide life, not just a long life.  

Aneesh:   6:11
This book was written, you know, thousands of years ago, and he's talking about people thinking that their lives are busy and that you know that they are not using their time appropriately, and think about it? We think of life right now, that it is extremely busy. And you know, we have a lot of the things that distract us away from life, like, you know, the social media, and TV, and things like that. And you would think that going back people had all of this time that he could spend in nature and doing things. But it turns out, humans have always struggled with it, I don't think this is a modern age problem. This this way of going through life, getting absorbed in just a day to day activities and then eventually lamenting that, Oh man! my life just went by and I didn't do anything. I don't think it's a new phenomenon, but I don't think that it's getting any better. That's the sad part. Despite all of these technological advantages that we have, we still don't feel that we are living for ourselves. That's the decline of civilization, I completely believe it. You know, we should be in a place where we can completely express ourselves as humans, rather than do two jobs just to pay the bills. He's not saying that you shouldn't do that to support your family and your kids, you should, but that should be no way to live. We should. All human should be expressing ourselves completely as humans can. You know, liberal education, the arts, learning about the nature of life. And what he says is the best way to spend your time is to learn philosophy. That could fill your time, that give it the breadth, the length, as opposed to this technical education, just busing yourself with day to day of life. What do you think about that answer?   

Eddie:   8:08
If I look at this very critically in a scrutinous way, it's sort of the classic example of instead of working to live, you are living to work. So that just sort of eats up your time. And it eats up what your potential, what your purposes is as a human, which is essentially to have a meaningful life. There is a line that I was trying to find in the book, 'People have this sort of almost like satisfactory disdain, about the things that trouble them just because they're the things that are associated with being rich and well off,  like ,'Oh! you know, now I have to host all these people, but you know, that's a, that's a good thing because I have this problem that means I am well off.' So even though it's something that's eating up their time and has little value. But what I was getting at is that my critical mind here is thinking, 'Okay, I get his point but when it turns into now, actually, taking this philosophy out into life, it has to be expressed, iy has to be externalized at some point, right? It has to be practical. So then, how do you how do you externalize what he's talking about? Maybe at that point, it's up to the reader to decide. Okay, I have to decide what I want to spend my time, on.  

Aneesh:   9:22
I have to say that, that book is very personal. What I mean is that, everybody who reads it take a meaning that is very personal to themselves. It is very difficult to kind of, if you and me both read the book and have the exact same idea, right? I don't think that's what happens.  

Eddie:   9:36
So this is kind of, my personal thought process, my reaction, my affective and intellectual reaction. My affective reaction to the book, my emotional reaction to the book is 'Oh my God! I agree with this guy and I'm doing exactly what he's saying you're not supposed to do.' Just like because I feel like I barely keep my head above water in certain weeks, especially after this week. I'm just like, yeah, I don't have that much time for myself. But then the intellectual side reaction to it is, 'Yeah, I get that. But what does a life where I do feel like I have all the time in the world, to know myself and to express, to develop my own philosophy, what does that life look like?' To me, that's where it gets very fuzzy and I think maybe in his book, it's, um it's that way as well just because that's the second part of the process, which is 'Yeah! Understanding, you know, what is important? How to make time a centerpiece, a valuable commodity.' But then when you take it from there, there is not much else that he could tell you aside from, just understand that, and you have to find a way to make your time your life as full as possible. So that's what I took from it, intellectually.  

Aneesh:   11:00
So essentially, what you're saying is that what you took away from it is that, first of all  that time is the Number 1, most important commodity. And then once once you understand that, then you can choose how you spend your time. Once you realize how important time is then you can be more mindful of how you spend that time. And then maybe at the end of life, you could say, you know, 'I lived a great life because I used my time well.' And you can choose what that means, as opposed to society choosing it for you. Correct, Right. Okay, so I completely agree with the first statement. First of all, it is, you can, once you realize that what I took away from the book is, how important time is. Once you realize how important it is and the fact that you don't know how much of it you have, right, then when someone tells you, 'Hey! Can I borrow you for a minute?' You can actually think about whether that is something that you want to give to that person, A minute? You know? 'Hey, you know, there's a meeting tomorrow morning at seven? You know, it's a staff meeting.' You could decide if you want to spend that one hour on the staff meeting or you want to spend that time doing whatever else. But the question is 'What is that whatever else , right? Because if you were to ask me, you'd say that, you know, two years or three years ago, there is going to be a big section meeting, why don't you show up, I would show up, no question, no question in my mind that I need to show up. But now the question that goes through my mind essentially is, you know, that's one hour for my time. Right now I manage my time , I am a steward of my time. So I am reluctant in going for things that have no outcome. It's very difficult to do because there are some things that you just have to do in life. So yes, just to answer simply, Seneca was very successful when he wrote this book. So it's easy for someone when they already have all of this, the luxuries and all of that, to say, 'Hey! Be more mindful of your time.' But folks like you and me who don't have this, and are kind of making our way there, you know, we cannot go on telling the world, 'My very precious!' you are going to worry about whether that's the right approach, correct. Yeah. And that's your, that's the struggle you're facing, too. And what I equate this, too is, uh telling everybody, how busy you. You call some and say, 'Hey, man. How you doing, man? Busy. Busy, busy. Life is busy? You know, work is busy, kids are busy, life busy. That business is something that people wear as a badge of honor. We are going here, we going there? Some social gathering somewhere, you know, work related stuff, a presentation to make. My kids need this and I need to do groceries and day after day, week after week, month after month, busy, busy, busy. And then a year goes by, two years ago by a decade goes by, and all you've done is just been busy. Yeah, right. And no one can argue that doing your presentations, doing your work, you know, doing the research, doing all the social stuff, getting your kids to theie games. All that is what life is about  that's modern life. No one is going to fault you, you are being a good parent, You are being a good employee, you are being a good husband, a good father, right? But that life is ultimately meaningless because you had no direction, life, just took you, times took you, you just went with it, you were in this big river that you were just, you know, kind of flailing around in. And you're like, 'Man I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. You make it till you are  65 or 70 or even before that when you become an empty nester. Suddenly you are like, 'Woah! What am I gonna do with all this free time? Who is this person that I am living with. I don't know this person, we just raised some kids and now she has her life and I have mine, you know? And then one day you're sick and in a few months you are gone and you're looking back at your life saying that I didn't do anything , I didn't accomplish anything and that is, in fact, the shortness of life. So the way you apply that essentially, is that is your more mindful of your time. I mean, if you look at your calendar right now, I didn't bring my phone, but you're looking kinda right now. My calendar's is; this meeting on Monday, this clinic, you know, and this kid's Ju-Jitsu and my wife's hair appointment; its just full of these things right. It's a busy calendar right, and that's looking in the future. Looking in the past, saying the things you need to do is important to us to make sure that set in the calendar for every day going into the future, right? But think about all of those things, none of those things are truly enriching. Yes, I need to do them, I need to go to work, I need to take my kid to the class, my wife needs to do whatever she needs to do, its all in there, but where is the enriching bit, why have I not chalked out 30 minutes of meditation in the morning, why I don't have a dedicated 20 minutes slot for my ukulele in the evening. You know, where is my 30 minutes of reading with my kids. Why is that not on my calendar. Why is that not marked off as busy? I'd rather be busy playing the ukulele or reading to my kid rather than being busy in a meeting. So if we scrub our calendar currently right? And put all the stuff that we want to do, 6:30 in the morning  you spend 30 minutes drinking coffee with my wife just talking about the day,  planning my day with my wife, right, that 30 minute conversation is probably going to trump every other conversation that you will have over the phone with her while you drive to work, right? If you pare it down there, both of you make an effort to wake up in the morning before the kids wake up, drink coffee, cuddle and talk, right? That probably go a long way. You see what I mean? 20 minutes for meditation in the morning. No matter what you do, you get up in the morning you know its in there, you meditate. Workout? Same thing, you can put it in there and you make sure you do it and scrub all the other stuff. I think, yes, that is still not philosophy. What Seneca's saying when he says 'Leisure', essentially, what he's talking about is the Great  Conversation stuff, reading the books of the guys behind you, who came before you, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates going all the way back, to Homer. Reading all those books and then having conversations, those people about your life. But he's saying that After he's actually accomplished quite a bit. But we can do both of those things. We can spend time having these Great Conversations, but we can also continue to do the things that are, in the present for us, looking at the future,as you know, making us better; better humans, better husbands better dads, you know all of those things, by not getting busy doing this stuff that the world, society wants us to do so. That would be an enriched life. At least that's my interpretation of it. Its like, if someone asked me tomorrow, 'Hey Man! What's going on?' I'm like, 'Great, I'm spending my time. I meditated this morning, I worked out and I recorded a podcast with my friend. Just imagine that, someone hears that, they are like, What? Are you on vacation?' As opposed to,' Man! I am busy, busy, my kids are busy, I'm busy!'  

Eddie:   18:39
It's hard because I just like, I get tired like. I come back from work and I'm freaking exhausted. You know, back before I was a little bit more mindful of how I was using my time now, it would just be like, I just need, like, lay down like I just need to sit and then that leads to being on my phone, checking my email, or stressing about something that's coming up. 

Aneesh:   19:08
Because we end up saying yes to too many things. Like, I have two presentations at two conferences that I need to do next week, and so I could have said no to them, and I would not be thinking about them. Now, I need to I need to go and actually prepare for them and stuff and I know how important my time is now, I much rather be sitting and, you know, spending time my kids or, you know, whatever else, than preparing those presentations.  

Eddie:   19:30
So the other thing I'm curious about is like, what would Seneca think about our lives. He probably think we're nuts, or at least me. Like he'd say, I think Seneca would show up and say, 'Well! You need to go part time and you need to start doing more stuff with your family and you start spending time doing the stuff that you were into in  high school, which was like artwork, and music. That's what you should do. I do not have the guts to do that. I mean, it's a scary thought, but like if I'm brutally honest with myself, I read Seneca, I told you that it was kind of scary to read because I'm like, Well, if I examined my own life, purely, you know, no ego, objectively as possible, I'm off track. I'm not doing the right thing.  

Aneesh:   20:26
The real reason why we are unable to spend the time the way we want is because we over commit to things that are probably meaningless, right? Or don't have as much meaning. So that over commitment can have many faces. So if you're just talking about your work, overcommitment in the work could be taking up a role or a position or are signing up to do some presentations, that could be your commitment. When it comes to your life and work in general, the fact that we chose to do medicine is am over commitment, because it takes so long to get where we got that you spent all this time you are just giving it away. And that was a real commitment. Nobody ever told you that? No, but everybody says it takes time but you know, but when you're done, you're gonna get all of this money and just that statement in itself is so ludicrous now if you think about it. And we all, you know, did it for all sorts of reasons. It takes time, but you know that you don't wanna go to a doctor who just went to medical school. You just have to go to see somebody spent all of this time. If you are going to take care of humans, you could spend all of the same studying and learning. You hear all these excuses and all these reasons, and you sign up for it thinking that this is a great adventure, that you're embarking on. The sacrifice that you're making, and you have no idea that you doing when you're young and you have no idea. And now you come to this end of it, you still nobody tell you how precious your time is, and then you end up wasting it in other frivolous ways. And we have discussed this before. If you are modest in your living, if you are modest in your endeavors, then you have to spend lesser time to keep up with your living in the endeavors. If you're modest with your ambition, you don't have to spend as much time at work. But it's not about, it's not about just being modest in your ambition or modest in your living. It's about being very aggressive in the pursuit of, time to spend exactly how you want to and not necessarily being someone who is just like, you know, saying NO! to everything. You cannot say no to working hard or no to living a luxurious life, actually saying that those things are not as important as personal enrichment, philosophy, family, and self. It is making a better choice. You have limited time, you have only that much time, you will spend a lot more of it in the pursuits that matter, less on those that don't matter. But how do we decide what matters and what doesn't matter, we have discussed this before, you have to unhinge from society the way it is right now. And you have to turn toward this light, turn work philosophy. You look at yourself inward, Introspect, find out who you are. You're lucky, atleast you have talents, you have music, you have art. I guy like me, I have no talents, I have to build talents. And that in itself is time well spent, expressing yourself as a human to the full potential is probably the best endeavor that a human can ever set forth trying to accomplish, as opposed to just working for a salary and, spending that salary on stuff and then working some more and buying more stuff. Eventually, then that's the shortness of life, when you look back, you got stuff but you have no time.

Eddie:   24:34
So there you have it, guys. Um, so at this point, let me turn it over to you Aneesh, tell us a little bit about some of the things that you've incorporated into your own time management processes.  

Aneesh:   24:47
I prioritize the things that are important to me. So, um, basically, I insured my time, I got really selfish with my time. My time is my own, personally mine. And yes, I'm so selfish that I'm thinking about time that I spend with my family is also not My time. Unless I choose to. I have chalked out time just for myself. Right? So this is what I follow. I follow a rule of three. And what 'The rule of three' is, is that I do three things just for myself. The most selfish things that I would do right? And I choose what those three things are. Now, those three things for me are meditation, exercise and one more. That third thing could be reading to my kids at night or whatever else. Right now, I make sure I do those three things every day.  

Eddie:   25:40
So these three things that no matter what you are scheduling or what you're doing, you're gonna plug this into your schedule.  

Aneesh:   25:46
It is part of my calendar, right? I wake up in the morning, earlier than anybody else wakes up and I spend time, I meditate. I make sure that the evening I work out and I've chalked out separately for this and that's my 'rule of three'. And you can have a rule of four, you can have a rule of five and put how many in there, as a matter  od fact , the more of such things that are in there, the more in the present you are going to be. The more selfish you are, the more time you've chalked up for yourself. And, you know, you could have 10 minutes in there for piano or to compose music. I used to put 10 minutes in there every evening for ukulele. And as a matter of fact, I mentioned that in the podcast and I'm not spending as much time doing it as I would like.  

Eddie:   26:24
That overlaps very nicely with my take home point, which is, ah, to schedule your enrichment. I think if you talk to most people who are listening to the podcast, they probably have a schedule on their phone or on the computer that orbits around things that they have to get done, but nothing to very little about things that they find personally enriching. And so I think it's very important to go ahead and put on your schedule, I'm going to spend 15 minutes in the morning hanging out with my dog. If I find that very important, I'm gonna spend ah, two hours on Saturday practicing the ukulele. Um, and if you schedule the things that you find enriching with as much vigor and priority and passion as you do the things that are having to do with the duties you have to comply with. That is one step toward work life balance. Yeah, which is going to lead the resiliency building.  

Aneesh:   27:27
Yeah, so I you want to read this passage that is from Seneca's book, and this kind of sums up the book even though it's in the very first page. So here's the passage. It says. 'The life we receive is not short, but we make it so. Nor do we have any lack of it but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth, however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian increases by use, so our life too is amply long for him who orders it properly.' I think that kind of sums it. Yeah, it does.  

Eddie:   28:17
Don't forget to look us up and subscribe to our podcast and leave us an honest 'Five star' rating. (Laugh!) But really, at this point, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And as always, um, we will include relevant information in our show notes, and wherever possible.  

Aneesh:   28:38
So we have a twitter handle, we have a Facebook page, we also have our Gmail account residencyrounds@gmail.com. Shoot us some questions, you know, give us feedback there, and we will be happy to get back in touch with you guys. Until next time. Yeah! Thank you.