My Existential Battle with Time

Aged 7 at Pompeii in 1970

The Weight of Hours: My Lifelong Battle with Time
I was six years old when my grandmother died, and someone told me that people usually live to about 70. I remember lying in bed that night, doing the math—64 years left—and feeling an overwhelming sense of panic. It wasn't enough. How could 64 years possibly be enough time to figure out why I was here? What my purpose was.
Most children that age are worried about losing teeth or learning to ride bikes. I was lying awake at night, gripped by existential dread, convinced I would run out of time before I'd even started.

The Child Who Counted Hours
Before I turned seven, I had already grasped something that many adults spend their whole lives avoiding: our time here on earth is finite, and therefore precious. While other children played without awareness of clocks or calendars, I carried the weight of mortality like a stone in my pocket. I knew—with a certainty I couldn't explain—that I had a purpose. I was here to find my meaning, to understand why I existed, and somehow to help others do the same.

But there was something else I knew, something that made the urgency even sharper. This wasn't my first time here. I carried awareness of other lifetimes, other attempts at life. And this time, I wanted to get it right.

It wasn't philosophy for me. It was urgent. It was personal. Every day that passed without understanding felt like a day wasted, a day I'd never get back—in a lifetime that was already just one turn in a much longer journey. Seventy years felt impossibly short when you know it's not your only chance, but you're desperate to make this one count.

The Ten-Minute Rule
As I grew older, this awareness didn't exactly fade—it calcified into rigid systems. My autistic brain, already seeking patterns and predictability, latched onto time management as a way to control the uncontrollable. If I couldn't extend my lifespan, I could at least optimize every moment of it.  But in all of this, I forgot my reason behind it.

I'm never late. Never. I'm ten minutes early to everything, because the alternative—being even a minute late—sends me into a spiral. The panic starts building if I'm held up by traffic, a slow walker ahead of me, an unexpected conversation. I can feel my heart racing, my chest tightening, because those minutes are slipping away and I will never, ever get them back.

When someone else is late, the anger comes fast and hot. They're not just running behind—they're stealing from me. They're taking minutes, hours, pieces of my finite life and throwing them away as if time were infinite, as if we weren't all running toward the same inevitable ending. As if we all had endless lifetimes to waste.

The Productivity Equation
Somewhere along the way, I internalized a formula that has ruled my life: Time + Productivity = Worth.
If I'm not busy (read "productive"), I'm not valuable. If I'm not producing something, creating something, achieving something, then what am I doing? What am I for? The child who lay awake wondering about her purpose grew into an adult who equates busyness with worthiness, who measures her value in tasks completed and hours optimized.

My days are carefully orchestrated. Every hour has its purpose. My routines are sacred structures that keep the existential dread at bay—if I'm productive enough, if I use my time well enough, maybe I'll fulfill that purpose I've been chasing across lifetimes.

When the Schedule Breaks
But life doesn't respect schedules. People need things. Emergencies happen. Technology fails. Bodies get sick. And when something disrupts my carefully planned day, it's not just an inconvenience—it's a crisis.

If someone needs four hours of my time, I don't just lose those four hours. I lose my equilibrium. Where will I find those hours? How will I reorganise? The domino effect cascades through my mental calendar: if I can't "work" those hours, I'm not being productive. If I'm not being productive, what am I worth?  

The panic isn't about the task itself. It's about the fundamental equation breaking down. Time lost equals worth lost. Time wasted equals another lifetime where I didn't quite get it right - I didn't get it finished. And there's no getting it back.

The Invisible Weight
There's a particular cruelty in this way of thinking that I'm only now beginning to see. I toil seven days a week—as a wife, a mother, a business owner, a creative professional, a caregiver. I respond to messages at dinner or whilst watching tv. I think about projects in the shower. My mental to-do list would overwhelm most people.

But this work doesn't register on my internal productivity meter. There's no timesheet for emotional labour, no hourly rate for the creative process, no measurable output for holding a family together. By my own ruthless standards, I'm always falling short, always wasting time, always failing to be productive enough to justify my existence.

The child who knew she had a purpose—who remembered having pursued purposes before—has become an adult who can never quite prove she's fulfilling it.

Running Someone Else's Code
I've recently realised something that's changed everything: this equation wasn't entirely mine to begin with. The voice that tells me "time is money" carries echoes of other people's values, other people's definitions of worth. I've been measuring myself against metrics I never consciously chose, trying to force my multifaceted, creative, caregiving life into a narrow definition of productivity that was never designed to accommodate it.

My autistic need for routine and structure is real. My awareness of time's preciousness is real. My sense that this lifetime matters—that I needed to get it right this time—that's real too. But the belief that my worth depends on every minute being optimised? That's someone else's programming running in the background of my mind.

The Paradox
And here's the thing: I did it. I figured it out. That purpose I've been chasing since I was six years old, across this lifetime and others—I've fulfilled it. I've learned what I came here to learn. I've done the work of understanding why I'm here and how to help others find their meaning too.
But now I face a different challenge entirely. This darned programming is still running. The panic when my schedule breaks is still there. The anger when someone is late still flares hot. The equation that says Time + Productivity = Worth is still calculating in the background, even though I know it's wrong.

I've completed the quest, but I don't yet know how to stop questing.

What Now?
It's time to be me. Not the me who's racing against time to fulfill some cosmic purpose. Not the me who's frantically productive to prove her worth. Just... me.
But how do I give myself permission to simply exist when every fibre of my being has been trained to measure my value in output? How do I let go of the urgency that has driven me since childhood? How do I allow myself the TIME to just be, when time has always felt like something to be used, optimised, never wasted?

I'm not fixed. I still panic when my schedule is disrupted. I still get angry when people are late. The programming runs deep, and old patterns don't dissolve just because you understand them.

But I'm learning. I'm learning that the next phase of this journey isn't about doing more—it's about BEING more. Not being more productive, more worthy, more purposeful. Just being more fully myself, without the constant internal accounting of whether each moment is being spent correctly.

I'm learning to write new code: Presence + Authenticity = Worth. Or perhaps: Being + Becoming = Enough.

The weight of hours still presses on me. That childhood awareness of mortality hasn't faded. The sense that I've been here before, that I came back to tie up loose ends and to get it right this time—that's still with me. But I'm beginning to understand that maybe getting it right doesn't mean filling every moment with measurable achievement.

Maybe getting it right means finally giving myself permission to stop performing my worth and start living my life.

Even if that means being late. Even if that means unproductive hours. Even if that means the schedule falls apart.
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I figured out my purpose. Now I'm learning how to live beyond it.
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And maybe that's the real lesson I came back to learn—that fulfilling your purpose isn't the end of the story. It's just the beginning of learning how to be free.