One very simple way of time management, which by the way, is itself a wrong word since one cannot manage time. It is something u leave to the almighty to do. This grandiose term time management is actually just about managing yourself. And there are poeple who call themselves Time management experts. There is no such thing!

Trying to manage time is like trying to put a fence around the ocean or hold a cup full of air! So that be the case, my friends. So what are u managing when u say u are managing time? In the simplest essence you are managing yourselves.

A classic example – there was a  time I lived in the Philippines for close to 4 yrs. And Manila is very much like Bangkok, notorious for its long traffic jams. Arguably Manila is worse than Bangkok.  While I was there, I had to put up with these very long traffic jams and sometimes u can be caught for so long that it takes an hour to cover one mile. So making sense of schedules in Manila was totally nonsensical. However one attempted to make appointments and attempted to keep them and leave the rest to the forces of the traffic Gods.

So, during one of these tempestuous moments, I was seated in a taxi with a good friend of mine and  I was already about 45 mins late for an appointment and it didn’t look like I was going to get there anytime soon. Now even by Manila standards that particular jam was horrendous. As we were edging our way down the traffic, it appeared that I was going to have to cancel this appt or not make it at all. And in particular for me, this was the 3^rd time I was trying to meet this individual. So it was frustrating for me. I was venting my anger on anything and everything that moved. The birds in the sky to the people sitting in the cars around, to the seat I was sitting on. I was doing this for a good 30 mins before I realized that my friend was sitting there amiably with an almost beatific smile on his face and his hand in his jacket pocket and he seemed to be murmuring to himself. For a moment there I said to myself- maybe he haslost it! The traffic situation after all these yrs of living there had demented the poor chap. I tapped him on the shoulder and said- what in the blazes are u grinning about?  I don’t see anything to smile about! We are caught in the middle of the jam and we cant go back to where we came from. We can’t move forward. We can’t open the car doors and the AC is not working. And I can count on the drivels of sweat running down my spine.  Thence, he looked up to me with an almost saintly smile of his face – what’s the problem?

The problem is that we are wasting our time and our day! He said- why would u imagine that I would allow a silly traffic jam to waste my time!  If I had to leave my house everyday and allow the jam to affect my life which is a daily occurrence in Manila,  I might as well not leave my house.

Now that stuck me as strangely rational. Here I was raising my blood pressure and condemning anything and everything and feeling helpless, and he seem perfectly calm. So I asked him what he was doing sitting there staring at the window…that can’t be particularly delightful! Then it struck me – Are you on something? What are you on? Give me whatever you are on…give me 2 of it!   Right now I really feel like I could do with it.

He said no drugs my friend. This morning as I left my house, I got up too late to do my normal spiritual practices. I usually allot an hour to do my prayers and a round of my rosary beads. I missed it this morning and I was very upset because it throws off my day. And right now the good Lord has kind of balanced it out for me by giving me back my one hour. 

Then after I finish this I have at least 6 letters I need to send out and he brandished a pen and a letter pad and said, “I am ready to get to work!”

And at that moment in time. …This is a little bit before cell phones became the norm, I was blown off the wall….if I am in control of my life, then I wait for no one. The more I am out of control, the more I find myself waiting. And that is essentially what this practise of the Sphere of Silence is all about.