时间焦虑：为时已晚？

总是有一个想法困扰着我。那种永远不会真正离开反复出现的想法：“太晚了”。出一本书、创办一家公司、学习一门新的语言都感觉太晚了。这种就叫做时间焦虑。坦白来说，正是这种想法让我没有掌握更多的技能，更多的机会从我眼前丢失。直到最近我才克服这种想法，虽然还在一直和这样的困扰做斗争，不过我还是想分享下我的策略。

I have always struggled with one thought. The kind of recurring thought that never really leaves you: “It’s too late.” Too late to publish a book, too late to start a company, too late to learn a new language. This is called time anxiety. The number of skills I haven’t acquired and the opportunities I didn’t take because of that very thought are, frankly, infuriating. It’s only recently that I have managed to get over that thought, and, while in my case it is still a daily struggle, I wanted to share some of my strategies.

人不是命运的囚徒而是受心灵的禁锢。ps：我趋向于理解成思维的局限

 “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”
    Franklin D. Roosevelt.

死亡的焦虑是害怕时间不够用，时间的焦虑则是害怕浪费时间。这是一种以最有意义的方式度过时间的痴迷。当社会告诉我们——或者当我们把社会的迹象解释为“太晚了，无法实现某个特定的目标”时，我们并不认为它有足够的意义。我们需要——我们要求——我们如何对待我们的生活才是最有意义的。

While death anxiety is the fear of running out of time, time anxiety is the fear of wasting your time. It’s an obsession about spending your time in the most meaningful way possible. And when society tells us—or when we interpret signs from society as saying—that it’s too late to achieve a particular goal, we don’t perceive it as meaningful enough. We need—we demand—that what we do with our lives actually matters.

时间焦虑有下面几种形式

• 当前的时间焦虑:每天匆忙的感觉，让我们感到不知所措和恐慌。有些人还会因为这种类型的时间焦虑所带来的日常压力而经历焦虑发作。
• 未来时间焦虑:对未来可能发生或不发生的事情的想法，这是担心的原因和“如果”类型的内部问题。
• 存在时间焦虑:很多人在想到死亡时，会以一种更加敏锐的方式体验到失去时间的感觉，时间溜走了，再也回不来了。

Time anxiety can take several forms

• Current time anxiety: the daily feeling of being rushed that makes us feel overwhelmed and panicky. Some people also experience anxiety attacks because of the day-to-day stress caused by this type of time anxiety.
• Future time anxiety: thoughts about what may or may not happen in the future, which are the cause of worry and “what if” types of internal questions.
• Existential time anxiety: the sense of lost time slipping away and never to return, which many people experience in a more acute way when thinking about death.

 《不败之心:论构建坚不可摧自我的科学》(the Undefeated Mind: On the Science of building a Indestructible Self)一书的作者亚历克斯?当我要死的时候，我会不会觉得我把太多的时间浪费在轻浮上?”

Dr. Alex Lickerman, the author of The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, says that time anxiety stems from some of the following questions: “Am I creating the greatest amount of value with my life that I can? Will I feel, when it comes my time to die, that I spent too much of my time frivolously?”

 时间焦虑并不一定意味着你相信有一种外在的力量为你的生活赋予了目标，而你还没有发现。它只是意味着，你的幸福在很大程度上取决于你觉得你正在为你的生活创造的价值的重要性。

Time anxiety does not necessarily mean that you believe in an outside force that has assigned a purpose to your life, and that you are yet to discover. It just means that your well-being is determined to a large extent by the importance of the value you feel you are creating with your life. 

但矛盾的是，这种过度优化可能会阻止我们为自己的生活创造最大的价值。我们总是通过个人对可能的感知来计算最好的潜在结果，从而限制了自己。克服时间焦虑意味着把我们的注意力从结果转移到产出上，这样我们就可以把精力花在我们可以控制的事情上。

 But, paradoxically, this over-optimisation may prevent us from creating the most value with our lives. We limit ourselves by always calculating the best potential outcome through our personal perception of possible. Beating time anxiety means shifting our focus from outcomes to output so we can spend our energy on things we can actually control.

Beating time anxiety: from outcomes to output

《专注力焦虑》(Mindfulness Journal for Anxiety)一书的作者坦尼娅?首先，时间是存在的，我们无法改变它。时间会前进，我们也会。接受这些简单却令人畏惧的事实是减少时间焦虑的第一步。接下来，您可以开始实施一些策略。

According to Tanya J. Peterson, the author of The Mindfulness Journal for Anxiety, it’s important to accept a few truths to be able to feel in control of your daily time and your lifetime. First, time exists and we can’t change that. Time will move forward, and so will we. Accepting these simple yet daunting truths is the first step in reducing time anxiety. Next, you can start implementing some strategies.

“如果我们继续问为什么，就像我们小时一样，试图挖掘我们最基本的野心 - 一个耗时的运动 - 我们最终会发现所有的原因导致同一个地方，一个核心原因是生活中我们一直在追求，这是衡量我们所做一切的价值的核心原因：要快乐。“Alex Lickerman博士，临床心理学家。

“And if we continue asking why, like the child we once were, trying to excavate down to our most rudimentary ambition—a time-worn exercise—we’ll eventually find all reasons lead to the same place, to the one core reason for living we’d sought all along, the core reason against which we measure the value of everything we do: to be happy.”
    Dr. Alex Lickerman, Clinical Psychologist.

 虽然人生目标在幸福心理学中是一个重要因素，但花太多精力去寻找它，而不是去做那些让自己快乐的事情，可能会引发焦虑。这里有三个步骤，你可以采取来减少时间焦虑，同时仍然在你的日常生活中找到意义:

1. 定义“合理利用时间”对你的意义:坐下来，想想什么能让你真正快乐，让你投入其中，而不要过多考虑最终结果的可行性。想想你的产出，想想你努力生产它时的感受。例如，不要认为出版一本书会让你快乐。问问自己是否真的喜欢写作。不要想如果你能跑马拉松你会有多骄傲。问自己是否喜欢跑步。列一张你真正喜欢的活动的清单，这些活动能为你自己或世界带来价值。
2. 为这些时刻腾出空间:这并不意味着为它们腾出时间。相反，想想你将在哪里把这些时刻融入你的生活。也许在你上班的路上。也许在家里，等孩子们睡着了。或者和孩子们在一起是你想为之腾出空间的活动。如果你的时间恰好比预期的少，那完全没问题。更重要的是设计一个空间，专门用于你“充分利用时间”的活动。正如多产作家玛丽亚埃奇沃斯(Maria Edgeworth)所说，“如果我们珍惜每一刻，岁月就会自然而然地到来。”
3. 排除耗时的干扰:我们在社交媒体上漫无目的地滚动屏幕或随意观看视频的时刻确实会导致时间焦虑。对内容消费模式进行快速审计，尽量减少在输入模式而不是输出模式上花费的时间。

While purpose in life is an important factor in the psychology of happiness, spending too much mental energy on finding it rather than doing things that make use happy can be anxiety-inducing. Here are three steps you can take to reduce time anxiety while still finding meaning in your day-to-day life:

1. Define what “time well spent” means to you: sit down, and think about what really makes you happy and gets you in the flow, without overthinking about how feasible the final outcome would be. Just think of your output and how it makes you feel to work on producing it. For example, don’t think about happy it would make you to publish a book. Ask yourself if you really enjoy writing. Don’t think about how proud you would be to run a marathon. Question whether you like running. Create a short list of activities you really enjoy and that bring value to yourself or to the world.
2. Make space for these moments: this does not mean making time for them. Instead, think of where you will incorporate these moments into your life. Maybe on your way to work. Maybe at home, after the kids are asleep. Or maybe spending time with your kids is the activity you want to make space for. If you happen to have less time than expected, that’s completely fine. It’s more about designing a space dedicated to your “time well spent” activities. As the prolific writer Maria Edgeworth said, “If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
3. Cut out time-consuming distractions: the moments we spend mindlessly scrolling on social media or watching random videos do contribute to time anxiety. Do a quick audit of your content consumption patterns and try to cut out the amount of time you spend in an input rather than output mode.

 正如我所说，时间焦虑是我仍然在与之斗争的东西，并且可能会在我的余生中继续与之斗争。如果你也在为之奋斗，我希望这些策略对你有用。

As I said, time anxiety is something I’m still struggling with, and may keep on struggling with for the rest of my life. If that’s something you’re also struggling with, I hope you find these strategies useful.

 原文：https://nesslabs.com/time-anxiety