“You can have it all, just not all at the same time.”
Life lived well and lives not lived
In a letter to Milena, Kafka wrote: “Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant?”
I think about this letter often and usually in my mind add “live freely” to it: “Perhaps we don’t live freely and love unreasonably because we think we have time?” Time is not the enemy but sometimes it’s easy to see it as one — life is long and life is short. There is too much time or not enough time.
I was never afraid to age and always thought that my best age is yet to come. I see myself as a sexy sophisticated fifty year old wearing pearls and drinking Aperol spritz on the Amalfi coast. Adulting is wonderful as long as you dont lose the spark. You have more money, more freedom, the ability to make all sorts of choices. You can have pizza for breakfast, you can travel with your girlfriends, read erotica, drink a glass of wine while taking a bath — all those wonderful things. I love adulthood. What I am bothered by is the loss of potential.
When I was little, I was pure unadulterated potential. Anything was possible. I was bright and clever and had all sorts of ideas. I am still bright and clever with all sorts of ideas, but with not so much time. Albert Einstein once said that "a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so." Honestly, with all due respect, fuck you, Albert. I am not a scientist, but as a woman approaching 30 I am bothered by it. 30 is tough on women, thats when society start pushing especially hard, and yet I get happier with every coming year. I know much more about myself and the world than when I was 18. It was a great time but it’s even better time now. I know my likes and dislikes and I won’t do things I don’t want to do just to prove something to someone. I believe it gets even better from here.
Science aside, I don’t think it’s exceptionally hard to achieve most things I want to achieve. I think it’s exceptionally hard to know what I want to achieve — truly. I know only (thanks to Mary Oliver) that “I don’t want to be demure or respectable. / I was that way, asleep, for years.” What else do I want? How do I want to live my life?
In my envisioned future, I am a mother of two or three, with a huge house by the coast and a city apartment with great views. In this future, I am a writer, a successful one clearly, successful enough to warrant a giant house and an apartment (and pearls and trips to Amalfi coast!).
I also want to go back to school. I’ve been toying with the idea for a few years now, but can never make a decision. I want to study psychology — I would be a good therapist — or physics, just because I’ve been fascinated by the world of it all lately (and truth be told, watched too much Big Bang Theory), but will probably do neither. I’d also like to travel the world, be an entrepreneur, climb mountains and organise yoga retreats. Sure, it’s possible to do it all but achieving results in any field requires focus, and you cannot focus on everything simultaneously. You must choose. You are able to do things you do because there are things you choose not to do so the secret to a life lived well is coming to terms with lives not lived.
I can fantasise all I want but the future is great but uncertain and so, by the way, is the past. We change our memories each time we recall them. I know, a cliche, but we only have the present — knowing that while we may not achieve every single dream simultaneously, we are creating a life filled with the moments that matter.
The Greeks distinguished two types of time: Chronos and Kiros. Chronos is quantitative. Kairos is qualitative; it measures moments, not minutes. Life is a combination of both.
There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. Planning my life, I often think of time in terms of quantity. My approach is rather methodical, I often reduce my days to bullet-point lists. Each task is allotted a specific time slot, with the understanding that every hour spent on one activity is an hour unavailable for another. In this quantitative mindset, time is a resource to be managed efficiently and productively. Surprisingly, with all that, I am not at all a productive person — I just love the dopamine kick I get after checking off an item.
Yet, as I reflect on my experiences, I realize that quality of time is more important than the mere accumulation of productive hours. We spent a week sailing between Sweden and Denmark — sunshine and wind in our faces. 168 hours of almost pure bliss, except for the water situation — something wrong with the pipes.
In those 168 hours, I didn't make any progress toward my long-term goals. There were no achievements to check off my list, and no advancements in personal projects. I was supposed to write three chapters — I was supposed to be inspired, all that fresh air and nothing to do. How mistaken I was. There was always something to do: all the fixing and cleaning and sailing itself. From a purely quantitative perspective, it might seem like time wasted. However, those hours were some of the most enjoyable and enriching I have ever experienced. They didn't move me closer to any tangible milestones, but they provided something far more valuable: a space to just be.
I an a believer (it’s me and Sartre, you guys) that existence precedes essence: “There is no human ‘nature’, there is only a human condition: we exist as self-conscious first-person perspectives constantly imagining and reimagining who we are as we move through time. There is no predefined ‘subject’; there is no fixed identity; there is no pre-ordained path or objective. Existence precedes essence, Sartre implores: the very fact of our existence comes first.”
The way we live our days is the way we live our lives
What is more important? The achievement of a lifetime or the joy of everyday life? Lives not lived will always haunt us. But maybe days not lived will haunt us more?
Betty Friedan, an icon in every right, said “you can have it all, just not all at the same time.” I am a terribly optimistic and even delusional person when it comes to my own dreams. It was never even a possibility for me to not have it all. But Betty is right. You can have it all. Just not at the same time. And you shouldn’t strive for it. Life is a series of choices and phases, each demanding its own kind of attention and dedication. Again, Einstein: “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”
We can have it all. We just need to figure out what is it all we want.
Recs on the topic
📺 "Dark Matter" is a mind-bending thriller about a physicist who is kidnapped into an alternate version of his life. Based on Blake Crouch's bestselling novel, the show explores the consequences of choices and the paths not taken.
📚 "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig explores the infinite possibilities of life choices. The story follows Nora Seed, a woman overwhelmed by regrets and disappointments, who finds herself in the Midnight Library — a place between life and death where she can explore different versions of her life by reading the books on the shelves.
