You need to forget about time and focus entirely on what you’re doing in the moment. Let yourself be fully present, and the rest will take care of itself. This was a lesson that Ben eventually learned. I hope you enjoy his story.
Ben’s story.
Ben had always been fascinated by time. Not just the way the clock hands moved, but how time itself seemed to bend and stretch depending on what he was doing. He’d noticed it first as a child, sitting in his maths class, staring at the clock as each tick seemed to take forever. His mind wandered, drifting to the playground outside where break time always seemed to end in a flash. He didn’t have the words for it then, but he felt it—the elasticity of time.
Years later, as an adult, Ben found himself lost in this same puzzle. He was sitting in his office, surrounded by stacks of paperwork that felt like an endless mountain. The minutes dragged on, each one stretching into the next, almost mocking him. He checked the time every few moments, hoping for the day to end, but it moved at a snail’s pace. He sighed, pushing himself through another tedious task, feeling as if he was trapped in some kind of time loop where every second expanded into infinity.
But then, there were moments when time seemed to disappear altogether. At weekends, Ben loved to paint. It was the only time he felt completely free. He’d set up his easel, mix his colours, and before he knew it, hours had passed. He’d look up from his canvas, surprised to see the sun setting. The entire day had slipped by without him noticing. He marvelled at how time could evaporate so effortlessly when he was doing something he loved.
The stark difference between these experiences gnawed at Ben. He started to pay closer attention, realising that his perception of time shifted with his interest in what he was doing. In the moments of boredom or frustration, time stretched out, heavy and slow. But in the throes of passion, time collapsed, speeding by in a blink of an eye.
One evening, after another long day at the office, Ben sat at his kitchen table, thinking about how time had felt like a burden all day. He compared it to the fleeting hours he spent painting. Why did time change depending on his focus? What was the secret behind it?
As he pondered, an idea formed in his mind. What if, instead of waiting for time to change, he changed his approach to time? He decided to experiment. The next day, at work, he tried to bring the same attention and interest to his tasks that he brought to his painting. It wasn’t easy at first. His mind resisted, wanting to fall back into the usual patterns of impatience. But he persisted, finding small ways to make his work more engaging. He set little goals, broke his tasks into challenges, and found satisfaction in each completed step.
To his surprise, the day didn’t feel as long. Time still moved slowly compared to his weekends, but it wasn’t the painful drag he had known. It was a steady, manageable pace. Ben realised that by shifting his attitude, he could change his experience of time. The clock no longer felt like an enemy.
As weeks passed, Ben practised this new approach. He found that his perception of time became more fluid. He no longer felt trapped in his daily routine. Even at the weekends, he noticed time more keenly, savouring the hours he spent painting without them slipping away so quickly. He learnt to balance his focus, to be present in whatever he was doing, and to appreciate time as it came, whether fast or slow.
One evening, as Ben cleaned his brushes after a day of painting, he thought back to that little boy in the classroom, staring at the clock, willing it to move faster. He smiled, realising how far he had come. Time was no longer something that happened to him—it was something he could shape simply by changing how he engaged with it.
Ben understood now that time was as much about perception as it was about passing seconds. He had unlocked a secret that had been there all along: time is relative, and the key to mastering it lay in his own hands. And with that, Ben finally felt at peace with the ticking of the clock.
P.S. If you could measure human interest and multiply it by time, then you would get the relativity of human time.
