Time for me (finally!)

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When travelling, one develops a different rhythm of life, time slows down. This experience helps you to take time for yourself!

 

Until I was 50, I ran after time. When I look back today at what I used to put into my days as a mother of a large family, company director or employee, I wonder how I was able to keep up this pace for so long. But I’ve been away for a long time and time hasn’t been the same. Little by little, I made peace with the clock of my life. But first I had to cross a zone of intense resistance and overcome the obstacles.

The cicada and the grasshopper: how you learn very early on that you have to be super active to be rewarded

 
Who didn’t learn this fable from Aesop (La Fontaine in France) at school? This brave cicada lives its life, sings and dances, savouring every moment of it when the grasshopper is busy. And woe betide her! Winter is coming and Miss Grasshopper is now homeless and penniless, the scum of the society that blames and mocks her.
Times have changed a lot since Aesop. However, the need to be active like an ant under acid has never been so powerful and is even taking on delirious proportions.
 

In modern societies, “no time” is such a common answer that one wonders what a normal life is made of

 
Foreigners who have lived in France bitterly complain about it. Difficult to get into a circle of friends, complicated to organise an outing, a party. You have to plan everything, reserve in advance and even then, guests will drop out at the last minute. Nobody has time! A lot of work, a few activities and permanent fatigue inhibit many of us. Earning a living is gaining time, losing time is losing life.
I spent years running after time, sacrificing to this dictatorship of the calendar important moments with my children who needed me, friends and about all, time for me. But also all these initiatives, these gifts of chance that I ignored in order to be on time, to do everything I had to do in the week, the month.
When I look back on that period, I have a few regrets.
When I see the others locked up like hamsters in their wheel, I would like to tell them that this rhythm is hellish and leads them nowhere. But like me before, they answer that it’s easy to say, that they have no choice, that we count on them.
 

Perhaps it is time for you, who dream of change and, moreover, of thinking about a different rhythm of life

 
Not to work, as understood in a civilised society, is to produce nothing. House kipping, filling up your car with petrol, pulling weeds, making castle of sand with your children are considered worthless occupations. To be considered, you have to do something remunerative.
However, doing nothing is not being passive. One can do nothing and spend time with a friend, a child, an elderly person, a stranger, an animal. Read a book, let your thoughts float, observe the world, cook, read. However, all these non-lucrative activities are essential to happiness. And what is the purpose of all this excitement if not to be happy?

To make a cake? WTF I’m working!

At that time, I worked in a company, I was an employee, my time was timed, divided between the office and the house. 
I’m a big fan of baking. Sometimes I like to eat it, but above all I like to make it. For birthdays, anniversaries, family celebrations, it was a bit like my job: to make a nice cake. 
I put all my heart into it. Theme, decoration, flavour, little characters. 
For my daughter’s birthday that year, I made a beautiful cake with a little blonde figurine (my daughter) sitting, surrounded by gifts, flowers made of coloured marzipan. Happy birthday my darling! 
The effect was successful. However, a member of the family commented: “Me, I don’t have time to bake cakes, (eyes in the sky) seriously…”

I answer that I prepare all this in the evening or on Saturdays. That it’s not that difficult, you have to get organised a bit. 
She adds: “In the evenings, I work, I send faxes, letters, I do the invoices… I have other things to do than baking cakes.” I lost the battle with a reply as stupid as it was sincere: “But it’s still nice to take the time to make a birthday cake for your children, isn’t it?”.
I liked to spend those hours making this present to my little ones. That was also what “having children” was all about. Taking time to read books to them, build castles, sew princess dresses… and make nice birthday parties.
It seemed to me at that time that it was something beautiful, making a cake for someone you love. A cake can be shared, it can be savoured, it requires a little more than know-how, it requires a little affection. It takes time. 

If it’s not the cake, it’s precisely this time invested in those few multicoloured candles and whipped cream, that comes to my face. 

Not having time is having value. This eagerness proves that you are an important, intelligent person. Why make a stupid cake when you can buy one? Earning money, that’s the heavy, the crucial, the primordial! It proves how much the person deserves respect and consideration. Taking the time to do something for someone is insignificant. 

That’s the way it was in my life before. The world around me was like that. Luckily, that life has changed a lot.

Learning to take time for oneself is sometimes a long process, which is why it is necessary to make a long journey

When I went on my first trip, for the first few months, I kept the same busy European rhythm. I had to stay active. A train to catch, a temple to visit, a trek to do. 
Even though I didn’t have a programme as such, I made the most of the time I had available to me. I longed to do something with it, something that would give me strength, motivation and happiness. I imagined that in this way I would recharge my batteries so that I could once again throw myself into a daily routine of hours, break-even points and performance.

20,000 kilometres and a few months later, time has slowed down. instead of doing something I learned to do nothing and taking time for me

 
After a few weeks, time lost its aggressiveness, its corrosiveness. Strangely enough, staying in the same place, going for a walk in the city every morning, sitting by the river, watching others from a terrace have become activities in their own right. To produce nothing is not to do nothing and that made me happy.
I took another measure of the passing of time. I took back the power over what I do with it.
I stopped being afraid of wasting time, and because of, running out of money. The anguish of having lost time that would have been better invested otherwise. The fear of missing something, important things, the fear of regretting and above all, the fear of tomorrow. I have regained self-confidence, I have regained power over time.
 

Taking one’s time and not producing anything is not always easy to assume

 
The one who produces nothing is badly enough juged. This non-activity interests no one, it is even disappointing. Our relationships with “others” are often based on actions, accomplishments. It’s seeing the picture of the traveller on the top of the mountain or posing in front of a monument that interests them. To get out of the race to produce is to risk finding oneself alone. 
It is the blues of the unemployed person who finds himself with nothing to do, while he has time to do many things, he feels useless and alone. It’s a long way to emancipate oneself from the consideration of others. 
 

A long journey helps to reconsider time as an opportunity, not as a threat

 
Time is water, sand that flows through our fingers. Impossible to store it, to keep it for later. So we fight “against” it. We have to be active, we have to be quick, we have to do more. Exhausted, we fall asleep like an grasshopper who thinks it will survive the winter, that it has done a good job. Yet who can claim to know what will happen next? 
Reconsidering what to do with the time we have left is one of the most difficult changes. 
 

Using time as we wish is an act of resistance

 
We need to work to support ourselves, to be independent and free. It is not a question of advocating a passive and idle lifestyle but of regaining control of time because this rhythm ends up making us sick. Suffering at work has become a professional scourge. Parents, children, dog, goldfish cat, nobody seems to be spared by the madness that has taken over this civilised world. Everyone suffers from stress, no one can stand still, everyone is emotionally and physically tired. But it is those who want to slow down who are blamed.
I’m not writing to you from an Indian ashram, I don’t live alone in the desert, I’m still a woman integrated into a society made up of men and women, work contracts, cars and traffic lights.
 
I went to the end of the world, at the cost of a lot of effort, to finally live my life for a few months, the time of an enchanted interlude. What I understood while making this long journey was that I needed to have the time as I wanted for the rest of my life, not just the time for a trip. That it is possible to say no to life’s rhythms that kill you and that it is much easier to say no when you regain your self-confidence.

A great trip really changes your life!

Relearning time is good, relearning confidence is even better!

Going for the long travel requires a certain flexibility. But it’s not just a question of adaptation. Sometimes you have to look at the world differently and learn to trust again …

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