Time | Navigate the Chaos

Time

Preface

When you hear the word time what comes to mind? Commons answers are appointments, a watch, a clock, or bedtime! Other responses to the question could include “time is something I value above all else,” “time is measured by how many vacation days I have,” and a host of other interpretations. The truth is time is complex, multidimensional, and dynamic and deserves more consideration than most people allocate. I hope this essay takes a small step in helping you understand the time dimensions of time: chronos and kairos.

This essay includes an introduction to the concept of time in general, a definition of the two dimensions of time, an overview of the characteristics required to engage with chronos and kairos, highlights of recent research on time, case studies to consider, and self-reflection questions to answer.

Introduction

Before exploring time further, let’s start off with the observation from Horace Jackson Brown Jr., author of the best-selling 1991 book Life’s Little Instruction Book who wrote “Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

Did these individuals have some super power that allowed them to maximize the 24 hours they had each day? No. Did they work non-stop without sleeping or taking breaks? No. What did they do? In short, they overcame one challenge after another and developed a strength, or grit. This sustained endurance help each individual solve one problem, then another, and then another.

When enough problems were solved they achieved progress. Over the course of a lifetime the progress each person acquired resulted in a significant impact. You have the same ability. When you overcome one adversity after another, you develop a sense of how to balance the management of your daily time (chronos) with an ability to create moments of deep meaningful time (kairos).

Helen Keller
Disability: At 19 months, Keller lost both her sight and hearing due to an illness. Overcoming these challenges, she learned to communicate with the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Keller went on to become an influential author, speaker, and advocate for people with disabilities.

Louis Pasteur
Academic Struggles: Pasteur did not excel in school early on, particularly in chemistry. Despite this, he persisted, eventually making groundbreaking discoveries in microbiology and chemistry, including the development of pasteurization and vaccines.

Michelangelo
Family and Financial Hardships: Michelangelo lost his mother at a young age and faced financial difficulties due to his father’s unstable income. Despite this, he became one of the greatest artists of all time, creating masterpieces like the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the statue of David.
Health Issues: He also suffered from physical ailments, likely due to the intense physical labor involved in his work, which he persevered through to complete his iconic works.

Mother Teresa
Loss of Father and Poverty: After her father's death when she was eight, her family struggled financially. Despite these early hardships, she dedicated her life to serving the poor and sick, eventually founding the Missionaries of Charity and earning worldwide recognition for her humanitarian work.

Leonardo da Vinci
Illegitimacy: Born out of wedlock, Leonardo faced the social stigma of illegitimacy. He received an informal education and had to navigate the complexities of his status. Nevertheless, he became a polymath, excelling in art, science, and engineering.

Thomas Jefferson
Personal Losses: Jefferson lost his father at the age of 14, which forced him to mature quickly and take on responsibilities. He also faced significant personal losses, including the death of his wife and several of his children. Despite these emotional hardships, he played a key role in founding the United States and drafting the Declaration of Independence.

Albert Einstein
Menial Jobs: Spent nine years working menial jobs, including at the Swiss patent office in Bern before landing a professorship. Able to complete his menial office duties in a few hours, he would spend the rest of each day writing. In 1905—often called his “miracle year”—the lowly clerk published four revolutionary articles that introduced his famous equation E=mc2 and the theory of special relativity.

Defining time

To understand time, and by extension how to leverage time, you need to explore the complexities of the concept itself. A good place to start is Ancient Greece over two thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos.

Chronos, often recognized as chronological time, resonates with anyone who checks a watch, clock, or computer. The concept emerges through standard units of time—60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 525,600 minutes in a year, as the musical RENT poignantly illustrates.

Kairos, on the other hand, lacks a direct and clearly defined equivalent in English. This concept relates to the moment when an archer pulls back the arrow and patiently awaits the perfect instant, or kairos, to release it. Engaging with kairos demands a lifetime of practice.

To better understand chronos and kairos, we should take a look at the definition of each word, the characteristics required to engage with each form of time, and some examples.

The first aspect of the definition highlights clock time for chronos and deep time for kairos. Clock time quantifies time, while deep time or kairos, emphasizes the quality of time. Understanding the difference between these two concepts hinges on the distinction between quantity and quality of time.

Seconds, minutes, and hours measure the quantity of time for chronos while moments capture deep quality time. As a quantifiable measurement, chronos operates within finite boundaries, encompassing a past, present, and future. In contrast, deep time, measured in moments, remains limitless, offering countless opportunities each day to engage with kairos.

Chronos represents time that we consume, whereas kairos represents time that consumes us. Chronos, with its measurement in seconds and minutes, follows a sequential pattern. Kairos, measured in moments, unfolds non-sequentially, lacking a fixed order. Finally, chronos shapes daily reality, while kairos offers a spiritual, emotional, and human opportunity.

Examples

Examples of chronos time include:

My appointment is at 9:00am
You have 30 minutes for the presentation
I need 10 minutes of your time
Every day I work out from 6:00am to 7:00am
Do you have time to talk tomorrow at 7:00pm?

Examples of kairos time include:

At what point in time do you release the arrow?
When do you tell someone you love them?
When do I stop tolerating being mistreated?
When do I take a chance on myself and do what I have never done before in order to be who I have never been before?
What do you get a new job?

Characteristics

The characteristics of those who leverage chronos include being highly organized, able to prioritize, and flexible to move appointments around.

Organized: Arranged or structured in a systematic way.
Prioritize: To arrange or deal with tasks or items in order of importance.
Flexible: Capable of adapting to new or different circumstances.

The characteristics of those who understand the value of kairos are courageous, comfortable with uncertainty, and develop a deep sense of grit.

Courageous: Showing bravery and willingness to face danger, difficulty, or pain despite fear or risk.
Comfortable with Uncertainty: Being at ease with situations where the outcome is unknown or unpredictable, and not being overly distressed by ambiguity.
Develop a Deep Sense of Grit: Cultivating a persistent determination and resilience in pursuing long-term goals, despite challenges and setbacks.

Research on Chronos

In a March 28, 2019, New York Times article, Adam Grant wrote

“I’m constantly falling short of my daily goals for progress, so I’ve struggled to answer the question. It wasn’t until that conversation with Michael that it dawned on me: Being prolific is not about time management. There are a limited number of hours in the day, and focusing on time management just makes us more aware of how many of those hours we waste.

A better option is attention management: Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. Attention management is the art of focusing on getting things done for the right reasons, in the right places and at the right moments.”

-----

Work by Grant, and many others, helps people understand chronos time. Our World in Data provides some interesting research on how people spend their time and who they spend it with throughout their lives. In terms of how people spend their time, the first and perhaps obvious conclusion that stands out upon viewing the data is that there are many similarities across countries.

Regardless of country, most people around the world split their day into three parts: “work, rest, and fun”, and so there are some predictable patterns. Additionally, it is also no surprise that people spend the most amount of chronos time working and sleeping. Together, paid work, housework, leisure, eating, and sleeping take 80–90% of all the 1440 minutes in a day. In short, this data helps us understand how people around the world organize their chronos time.

As reported in the Our World in Data site:

Differences in demographics, education, and economic prosperity all contribute to inequalities in work and time use. But what’s clear in the chart here is that some differences in time use are not well explained by economic or demographic differences. In the UK, for example, people spend more time working than in France, but in both countries, people report spending a similar amount of time on leisure activities.

Cultural differences are likely to play a role here. The French seem to spend much more time eating than the British — and in this respect, the data goes in line with stereotypes about food culture. People in France, Greece, Italy, and Spain report spending more time eating than people in most other European countries. The country where people spend the least time eating and drinking is the USA. Excerpt located at Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/time-use

-----

The other research finding from the Our World in Data site examines who Americans spend their time with, by age and throughout their life. For example, how many years do people spend with their children? How many years do people spend with their partner?

As reported in the Our World in Data site:

When we’re young — particularly in our teens — we spend a lot of our time with friends, parents, siblings, and extended family. As we enter our 20s, time with friends, siblings, and parents starts to drop off quickly. Instead, we start spending an increasing amount of time with partners and children. The chart shows an average across Americans, so for those that have children the time spent with children is even higher, since the average is pulled down by those without children.

As the chart shows, this continues throughout our 30s, 40s, and 50s — over this period of their life, Americans spend much of their time with partners, children, and, unsurprisingly, co-workers. For those 60 and older, we see a significant drop-off in time spent with co-workers. This makes sense, considering many people in the US enter retirement in their mid-60s. We see that this time is partly displaced by more time with partners.

How about the number of people we interact with? This chart suggests that the number of people with whom we interact is highest around 40, but then things change substantially after that. And this is perhaps the most conspicuous trend in the chart: above 40, people spend an increasing amount of time alone. Excerpt located at Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/time-use

An Epidemic of Loneliness

One additional finding from the Our World in Data research concerns an epidemic of loneliness.

Older people spend a large amount of time alone and it is understandable why — time spent alone increases with age because this is when health typically deteriorates and people lose relatives and friends. Indeed, many people who are older than 60 live alone. Another interesting point here is that the share of people across all age groups who live alone has been rising over time.

To explore the issue of loneliness, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, published a 2023 report entitled "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community.”

In his report Dr. Murthy wrote:

When I first took office as Surgeon General in 2014, I didn’t view loneliness as a public health concern. But that was before I embarked on a cross-country listening tour, where I heard stories from my fellow Americans that surprised me. People began to tell me they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant.

Even when they couldn’t put their finger on the word “lonely,” time and time again, people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from every corner of the country, would tell me, “I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself,” or “if I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.”

It was a lightbulb moment for me: social disconnection was far more common than I had realized. In the scientific literature, I found confirmation of what I was hearing. In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness.

-----

Think about that for a moment. Approximately half of American adults reported experiencing loneliness. Since kairos involves deep human moments of emotional, social, or physical connection, being lonely jeopardizes one’s ability to experience kairos time. Lonely people may indeed be proficient in the use of their chronos time. Perhaps they are always on time. They leverage technology to keep an organized calendar.

When it comes to kairos time, however, the more chronos time they have by themselves, the greater the risk of missing out on kairos time.

The following case studies help illustrate the intersection of chronos and kairos in the lives of three different people. As you read each case study, reflect upon your own life and see if you can identify moments where the two dimensions of time intersected.

Case Studies

Chris Gardner, Ingrid Fournier, and Jennifer Esposito offer three real-world examples of people who had moments in their lives where chronos and kairos intersected. As such, each case study offers us valuable lessons to learn in the necessity of self-awareness if we are to manage chronos and kairos to navigate the chaos of life and live how we have envisioned.

On the cover of his book The Pursuit of Happyness: Start Where You Are, entrepreneur Chris Gardner has a watch on each wrist. It’s not until page 160 that he explains why. One day, Gardner, a stockbroker calling on new account leads, was late to a prospective client. He failed to close the account but took to heart what his prospective client told him, “Son if I can’t expect you to be on time, I can’t expect you to make timely decisions with my money.” From that point onward, Gardner started to wear a watch on each wrist so as never to be late again.

Ingrid Fournier, a former K-8 grade teacher from Michigan serves as another example. Fournier, started teaching as a Peace Corps fellow shortly after college, traveled, met and married another volunteer, and together they began their teaching careers while serving in Latin America. Upon returning to the U.S., Fournier taught K-8 grade for 26 years in school districts across Michigan. In an August 23, 2023, AARP article she said “It was wonderful but it wasn’t sustainable. What was being asked of teachers was too much.”

Exhausted from COVID-19’s impact on teachers in general and herself specifically, Fournier, along with her husband, quit. She had five years left until she would be fully vested. According to Fournier “I had five more years until I would have been completely vested in retirement, but it wasn’t good for me mentally. We were lucky enough to be in a position that we could just say, 'We're done.'”

After taking a few months to decide what to do next, she found a job as branch manager of a public library in Scottville, Michigan, a city just shy of 1,400 residents. She plans activities for schoolchildren and is involved in events like a highly anticipated beekeeping series that merges history, biology and culture. In some ways, she’s still a teacher but on a different level, with an easier pace and support from administration, colleagues and a close-knit community.

Even though she was five years away from being fully vested in her pension, Fourier knew it was kairos time to walk away and do something else with her career and life.

The final example of someone who understood it was kairos time is Jennifer Esposito. As Celia Fernandez reported in a June 14, 2024 CNBC article "Jennifer Esposito mortgaged her house to fund 'Fresh Kills'- a movie she's been trying to make for over 15 years: 'I'm deeply proud of it."

-----

Esposito was so passionate about getting her latest film done that she mortgaged her house to help finance it. The Hollywood star wrote, produced, directed and starred in “Fresh Kills,” a film about growing up in 1980s Staten Island as women surrounded by the mafia. The film is in theaters now and features actors Annabella Sciorra, Domenick Lombardozzi, and Odessa A’zion.

In an interview with KTLA, Esposito spoke candidly about knowing the risks of mortgaging her house, but she did it because she believed in herself enough to get this film done—a project she wrote on and off for 10 years and spent over 15 years trying to get made.

“This town tells you what you can be and what you can’t be for so many years. I was just so over that and I thought, ‘Why am I asking the world to believe in me, I have to believe in me.’ So I’m going to put my money down,” Esposito says. “At the end of my life, am I going to be so happy that my house was paid off? Or am I going to be so happy that I gave myself the opportunity that I’ve been waiting for far too long?”

Conclusion

In her publication Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art author Madeleine L'Engle commented on Kairos and wrote “but BEing time is never wasted time. When we are BEing, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are touching on Kairos, and are freed from the normal restrictions of time.”

We spend so much of our time on chronos, I do wonder if we have lost sense of Kairos. To be aware of Kairos is to be more fully alive, more human, and more engaged with the development of your future self. To leverage Kairos with chronos requires a tremendous amount of energy and a lifetime of work. Since no amount of money can buy chronos or kairos, it is up to you to make kairos a priority. Doing so can help you understand your place in the world, as well as your own capacity to grow. I wish you well as you navigate the chaos of life as you pursue the balance of chronos and kairos.

Self-Reflection Questions

Here are 20 self-reflection questions, 10 focus on chronos and 10 on kairos.

Chronos Reflection Questions:

How do I currently organize my daily schedule? Am I making the most of the hours I have each day?
What tasks do I prioritize in my daily routine, and are they aligned with my long-term goals?
How do I manage interruptions or distractions that consume my time?
Am I flexible in adapting my schedule when unexpected events occur, or do I become stressed?
What strategies do I use to ensure that I meet deadlines and stay on track with my commitments?
How often do I find myself wishing for more time? What can I do to optimize the time I have?
Do I set aside specific times for rest and recreation, and how effective are these periods in recharging me?
How do I balance work and personal life? Is there an area that demands more of my time than it should?
What habits or routines have I established to maximize productivity, and are they working for me?
How can I improve my time management skills to be more effective in achieving my daily tasks?

Kairos Reflection Questions:

When was the last time I recognized a perfect moment to act, and what did I do in that moment?
How comfortable am I with uncertainty and waiting for the right time to make a significant decision?
In what ways do I cultivate the courage to take action when the moment feels right, even if it’s unconventional?
How do I distinguish between the urge to act impulsively and the wisdom to wait for the right opportunity?
Reflecting on past experiences, when have I felt truly present in the moment, and what was the outcome?
How do I tune into my intuition to recognize kairos moments in my life?
What practices help me develop a deep sense of grit, enabling me to persevere until the right moment arises?
How do I respond to moments that feel spiritually or emotionally significant? Do I honor these moments, or do I rush through them?
In what areas of my life am I allowing myself to be consumed by the moment, rather than just going through the motions?
How can I better integrate the concept of kairos into my daily life to enhance my personal growth and fulfillment?