Time is fake

 Whenever Daylight Savings time ticks around, I'm always semi-stressed about forgetting it or getting times wrong and ending up being late for something.  In general, I'm not the best person with time (I often say that I don't do time well), and I have a lot of anxiety about 'being late' (which for me means if a thing should start at 5, and it's 5:01, then I'm late and I feel like I need to apologize).

 

Even in this day and age of internet connectivity, time remains somewhat relative.  None of the clocks in our house say the same thing (even though we set them all based on computer time, which auto-sets, every time power goes out), and it's very common for clocks to have different times when you go to other places, so getting fiddly over a few minutes, when the clocks can't even agree, seems a bit silly.

And while I totally feel like we should try to be timely, especially when other people are involved (it's funny, I don't get annoyed when other people are a few minutes late, but yeah, if you have people expecting you and you're gonna be more than like 10 minutes late, a quick heads up is always appreciated!), trying to live our lives by to the second timing is just stress inducing.

And especially around a change like Daylight Savings, where everyone is adjusting their clocks (except those lucky people who live in places that don't do this) there is just so much room for error that getting fussed about mistakes is just not healthy.

Further, being too focused on exact timing can be highly (and unnecessarily) stressful.  So many things that we connect to time really don't need any level of exactitude.  As my husband often says, most days it doesn't matter if dinner is late (or early), and getting worked up over it just creates issues where there shouldn't be any.

I'd also extend this to celestial timing.  For most of us, spiritual timing is already a loose thing.  We look at things like moon phases in terms of days (not worrying about the exact moment that a phase hits), and the same often goes for holy days (like the equinoxes).  And if we are already stretching a moment into a day, why not give ourselves a little more wiggle room.  

It's okay if you honor things at a different time.  (It's also okay if you feel timing is important and it feels right to you to make sure things happen on time!)  Think of it like a friend's birthday.  We don't feel the need to celebrate the second they were born, and if we miss their birthday we offer a belated birthday wish.  We don't tend to tie ourselves in knots wondering if we should say something the day after or just skip it (because we know that the intent behind the well wishes are the important part, not the timing).

And yet, a lot of people get really hung up on (somewhat arbitrary) chunks of time, and really agonize over whether or not it's 'appropriate' to celebrate a holiday on the nearest weekend or do full moon work the day before.  I'm very much in the camp of 'done is better', and while I do sometimes strive for hitting those timing marks, if I don't, I've learned to not stress over it (spiritually speaking...I still haven't figured out how to apply this same attitude to more mundane things, go figure!)

I think it can also be handy to take the really, really long view.  The deities I work with are centuries old (at least!), and I really don't think they care if I do something on one day or a different day, let alone the hour of the day.  ((Again, I know that keeping exact timing is a devotional thing for many people, and if that works for you great, but if not, then maybe the long view will help you reconcile things in your own mind.))

At the end of the day, I think that asking yourself what is really important can be very helpful.  In ritual, which is more important:  the time it takes place or the ritual itself?  Is timing part of your devotion or simply an optional add?  Is it better to do something on time or not at all?  Maybe it's okay to not be so worried about the when and instead look to the what, how, why and with whom.