Are the Issues We Have With Time Management Rooted in How We Have Evolved to Think About Time?

Abstract

After the recent passing of my father, an excruciatingly painful event that was intimately connected with thoughts about life and existence, I realized that the concept of time was heavily present in the grieving process. I have always maintained an interest in time, not in a measurement, physics, or universe sense, but rather how it appears to influence our thinking. Here, I explore how my father’s death challenged the apparent instinctual response to think seasonally (a recurrence of the same thoughts and ideas with each new year), why thinking seasonally might not be the advantage we think it is, and why thinking too much about time is actually destructive to our wellbeing. I finish by discussing that one reason we seem so receptive to thoughts about time is because it could be foundational to our sense of morality.