Your Time Is Your Life

A Guide to Slowing Down and Coming Home to Yourself

Why does a slow walk through the woods feel longer—more alive—than a whole week of back-to-back meetings?

A few days ago, I was standing at the edge of Sebago Lake on my birthday. The air was crisp for mid-July, the water still and open—no emails, no alarms—just the soft weight of time, unstructured and fully mine.

That morning, time didn’t feel like something to outrun or organize. It felt like something I was part of.

But back in the routine—calendar alerts, stacked meetings, deadlines packed into neat 30-minute blocks—everything felt thinner. The day seemed to speed up without permission. It felt like I was living on fast forward.

Same number of hours. But one version of time was wide and full.
The other? Tight. Fleeting.

This is the paradox we rarely talk about:

The more we try to hold onto time, the faster it slips through. But the more we loosen our grip, the more time opens.

Oliver Burkeman, who joined me earlier this week, has spent years studying this tension. His NY Times bestselling book puts a number to it—the average human lifespan.

Four thousand weeks.

That’s not a scare tactic. It’s an invitation.

Because once you face that number, everything changes.
You stop assuming you’ll “get to it later.”
You start asking harder, better questions—about what’s worth doing now.

In our conversation, Oliver said something that stayed with me:

“You’re never going to get it all done. That’s the trap.
Time management is often just a coping mechanism for existential overwhelm.”

And he’s right.

We chase systems and schedules because they promise control.
But what they give us—at best—is structure.
And structure without clarity? That’s just a busy cage.

We treat time like a problem to solve.
As if having the right app, the perfect planner, and an optimized morning routine will finally make us feel “caught up.”

But that “caught up” feeling? It never comes.

Because the list grows as fast as we check it off.

Maybe the problem isn’t time at all.

Perhaps the problem lies in our relationship to it.

When I stood by the lake that morning, nothing got done. No boxes checked.
But I felt more awake—more alive—than I had in weeks.

Why?

Because time isn’t something to survive, it’s something to inhabit.

And that’s the shift this episode invites you to make:

From measuring your life in minutes…to noticing it in moments.

From running your days like a race…to letting them unfold like a story.

Because this moment—right now—isn’t just a stepping stone to later.

It is your life.

Time isn’t just a resource. It’s a signal.

Where you spend it reveals what you value.
Where you protect it reveals who you are.
And where it vanishes unnoticed… that’s often where meaning is trying to get your attention.

Let’s stop thinking in hours.
Let’s start thinking in presence.

Because a life well-lived isn’t one where you did it all.

It’s one where you remembered what mattered—while you were still living it.

YOUR TIME IS YOUR TRUTH

Are you living a life that looks good—or one that feels good?

That’s the question Karen Salmansohn asked me when we spoke, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Because if you’ve ever worked yourself into burnout chasing the right job…
If you’ve ever curated a life that looks successful from the outside but feels hollow on the inside…

Then you already know the answer.

You can build a beautiful life on paper—and still feel miles away from yourself.

You can cross off every goal on the list—and still wonder why you feel disconnected, depleted, off.

That’s not a failure of planning.
It’s not a lack of discipline.
It’s a signal.

A disconnection from what’s real. From what’s true.

Last week, my wife and I were walking through the foggy woods in Acadia National Park.
As we hiked, I could feel the hush of pine needles underfoot and the wind moving through the branches above us.

And in that silence, I felt something shift.
It wasn’t dramatic.
But it was honest.

For the first time in a while, I felt like me.
No roles. No deadlines. No to-do lists.
Just presence.

Now, contrast that with my usual weekday.
Color-coded calendar. Back-to-back Zooms. Deadlines are chasing each other like dominoes.
Efficient. Productive.
And yet?

It often doesn’t feel like my life.
It feels like a life I’m performing—one obligation at a time.

That’s the trap.
When we become too good at managing time, we forget actually to live it.

Oliver Burkeman, in our conversation, said something I want to echo here:

“We act like we’re immortal… while quietly panicking that we’re not.”

We race through our days as if we have all the time in the world—
all while carrying this subtle fear that we’re wasting the time we do have.

So we fill our calendars.
We check the boxes.
Not because we’re clear—but because we’re afraid.

Afraid of being left behind.
Afraid of not mattering.
Afraid of what might surface if we ever slowed down long enough actually to feel what’s real.

But here’s the more profound truth:

Your time is your truth. Where you spend it is who you become.

Look at your calendar.
Not just your plans—your priorities.
Not what you say matters—what you’re living.

Because your schedule doesn’t lie.
It reflects your values, whether you’ve named them or not.

And most of us?
We spend our best energy responding to urgency rather than living from intention.

We say yes to too much.
We give our attention to what’s loud, not what’s meaningful.
And we wonder why life feels like a blur.

So let me ask you—gently, but clearly:

Where are you spending time out of obligation?
Where do you feel most like yourself?

Please write it down. Track it. Not just your tasks—your truth.

Because time is more than motion.
Time is identity in action.

And if how you’re spending your time doesn’t match who you want to be?
That’s not just a scheduling problem.
That’s a soul-level misalignment.

And it’s fixable.
Not by adding more—but by coming home to what matters.

THE DISCIPLINE OF WONDER

Let’s talk about discipline.
Not the rigid kind.
Not the kind that cracks the whip and squeezes the breath out of your calendar.

I’m talking about the kind that opens you.
That sharpens your attention and steadies your pace.
The kind that makes awe possible—because you’ve cleared enough noise actually to notice it.

Discipline without purpose is pressure.

But discipline in service of wonder?
That’s how astronauts are born.

That’s what Susan Kilrain taught me.

As a Navy pilot and one of the few women to fly a space shuttle, Susan knows the cost of chaos—and the power of precision.
But what stuck with me wasn’t just her skill.
It was her clarity.
Her reverence for the mission.

“You don’t panic when you know what matters,” she said.
“You train for it. You focus. And then you can enjoy the ride.”

And I knew exactly what she meant.
Because I’d just lived my version of that clarity a few days before we spoke.

The Day I Stopped Measuring Time

On July 15th—my birthday—I started the morning with a summit hike above Sebago Lake.
Just me and my friend Mark.
No phones. No rush. Just air in our lungs and time on our side.

Later that afternoon, we drifted across the lake with our wives—no plans, no signal. Just movement and conversation.
That night, we lit a bonfire. The sky broke open with stars.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt completely unhurried.

Not because I cleared my schedule.
But because the moment was enough.

And that’s the shift.

We tend to think that awe is a lightning bolt—random and rare.

But most of the time, it’s just sitting quietly behind a simple “no.”

No to the meeting.

No to the scroll.

No to the performance of productivity.

And what science is now telling us—primarily through the work of Dacher Keltner—is that awe doesn’t just feel good. It alters our perception of time.

In his research, people who experienced awe reported feeling as though they had more time. They became less impatient, more generous, more grounded. Awe didn’t make them more efficient—it made them more present.

And that’s what I felt, sitting around the fire that night, the sky cracked open with stars above Sebago Lake.

Not a bigger life. A braver one.

Braver because I was willing to stop.

To pay attention.

To let time unfold—not as a series of tasks to complete, but as a moment to belong to.

Clock Time vs. Emotional Time

There’s a difference between the time we track and the time that touches us.

You can lose a whole week to back-to-back meetings.
And remember nothing.

Or you can spend one slow afternoon in the woods—
and feel like your entire system rebooted.

Clock time is linear.
Emotional time is felt.

Clock time is efficient.
Emotional time lasts.

It’s the conversation that stays with you.
The night sky you keep replaying in your head.
The silence that finally made space for your own voice.

And it’s what Susan understands better than most.

She didn’t just train for the technical parts of the mission.
She trained to be present for them.
To meet each moment fully.

Lessons from the Astronaut’s Mindset

Here’s what Susan taught me—and what I think more of us need to hear:

• You can have high standards without chasing perfection.

• You can be structured without being strangled by your systems.

• And you can lead without losing sight of the wonder that got you started in the first place.

She told me this:

“I almost always think of the word ‘no’ as a challenge to find another way.”

That line’s stayed with me because it flips the script.

We think “no” is about shutting doors.
But sometimes “no” is how you protect your real life from being overrun by your resume.

Awe as the Fuel for Excellence

So let’s reframe it:

• Discipline can protect your joy—not just your outcomes.

• Awe isn’t a detour from greatness. It’s the reason for it.

• Time doesn’t have to feel scarce—when you’re spending it on what matters.

Wonder doesn’t demand hours.
It just needs a crack in the noise.
A pause wide enough to notice you’re alive.

Designing a Life That Feels (with The Awe Map)

We design our calendars.
We design our careers.
We even design our kitchens and phones down to the color of the widgets.

But when was the last time you stopped and asked:
What does it mean to design a life that feels like living?

That question echoed through me in Maine—not in the postcard moments, but in the quiet ones.

The stillness of Sebago Lake at sunrise.
The slow drift of the boat.
The sound of a fire catching under a star-streaked sky.

None of it was impressive.
But all of it felt alive.

And I kept thinking about the work of psychologist Dacher Keltner, who’s spent years studying awe, not as some poetic extra, but as a biological need.

His research shows that awe expands our perception of time.
It quiets the ego.
It dissolves boundaries between us and something greater.

And here’s the part that changed how I see my own time:

Awe doesn’t just come from the extraordinary.
It hides in the ordinary.
A tree canopy. A child’s unfiltered laugh. A line in a book that lands right when you need it.

As Keltner puts it:

“Awe is triggered when we encounter vastness, and when we struggle to make sense of it.”

In other words: awe invites us to stop grasping for control—and start receiving the moment.

Awe isn’t found.
It’s allowed.
And often… it’s designed.

Not by adding more into your day,
But by making space within it.

The Awe Map: A New Kind of Compass

We’re taught to optimize time.

But what if the real work isn’t optimization—it’s orientation?

Let me show you what I mean with something I now call The Awe Map.

Pause

Step back.
Take inventory—not of your productivity, but of your presence.
Where are you moving too fast to feel?
Where are you just going through the motions of life instead of truly living it?

Even five quiet minutes can show you what the hustle has been hiding.

Prioritize

Ask: What brings me back to myself?
What opens wonder instead of chasing approval?

We think we’re craving applause.
But most of us are starving for awe.

Protect

Not everything deserves to be on your calendar.
If you want space for what matters, you have to protect it.
That slow hour? That unhurried walk?
Treat it like your most important meeting—because it is.

Practice

Awe is not a one-time spark.
It’s a rhythm.
A discipline.
One hour a day. No scroll. No output. Just presence.

This isn’t a retreat from life.
It’s how you return to it.

This Isn’t About Balance. It’s About Belonging.

The truth is: most people don’t burn out from doing too much.
They burn out from doing too little of what brings them back to life.

Not enough beauty.
Not enough breath.
Not enough belonging to the story they’re living.

You don’t need a reinvention.
You need a realignment.

One hour at a time.
One, yes, that means yes.
One, no, that frees you.

Because the moments that shape us aren’t the ones where we check every box.

They’re the ones where we finally stop long enough
to feel like ourselves again.

THE QUIET POWER OF LIMITS

A few days after my birthday, I found myself standing on a cliffside in Acadia National Park.

The ocean stretched wide in front of me. Pine trees lined the ridge. Wind curled through the silence.

And I thought: this is what time feels like when it’s not crammed, when it’s not managed, measured, or optimized.

Just still.

And the stillness wasn’t empty—it was full. Full of breath. Of presence. Of the meaning you don’t chase. You receive.

We talk about freedom as if it were the absence of limits.

But maybe limits are the shape freedom takes.

Just like the coastline gives shape to the sea, time gives shape to our lives.

If time were infinite, it would be meaningless.

It’s the fact that it ends that gives it power.

And that power isn’t in how much we get done.

It’s in how fully we show up for the hours we’re given.

That’s what I want to leave you with.

Not urgency. But reverence.

Purpose is What Anchors Time

Because when time is just a list, it slips away.

But when is time rooted in purpose?

It slows.

Purpose turns routine into ritual.
Brushing your kid’s hair before school. Lighting a candle before you write. Taking a walk without a destination.

Meaning isn’t something you find at the end of a long path.

It’s made—right here, in the middle of ordinary life.

When you stop outsourcing your time to other people’s urgency…
When you start choosing moments that reflect your own values…
You begin to remember who you are.

And here’s what’s most surprising:

Designing a life that feels like yours often means saying “no” more often than “yes.”

No to the invite.
No to the extra meeting.
No to the performance of always being on.

Because every “no” you speak creates space for a deeper “yes.”

And here’s a question to hold on to:

What do I want to remember from this season of life—
not just what do I want to get done?

That answer is your north star.

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