above all else,

life has become governed by numbers—how much money is left in your bank account, how much you spent this month, how many followers you have, how much this is going to cost, how many likes you get, how many calories you should consume, how much weight you gained or lost, how big is the land dedicated to you as mentioned in your parents’ will, what the total area of your house is, how heavy you could lift, how many publications you have, etc., etc.

how many. how much. how on earth.

there is one numerical element I have been thinking intensely about lately, and that is time.

you see, when it comes to time, our value for it differs with age—when you’re a child, you can’t wait to grow up, thinking that it will provide you with less rules and more power over what you get to do and when you get to do it. time feels infinite. school is fine because you don’t have much homework yet, but you wish to prove that you’re old enough to stay up late like the grown-ups, sufficiently late to watch the end of your favorite cartoon episode. time is passing by slowly, because why is it that you get to gain only one year at a time? when is it that you get to finally be this 25-year-old, free human? and, most evidently, there is always the excitement in growing up.

in your teens and early 20s, time is still this thing that feels both endless and fleeting—at one moment you’re studying for a test, at another you’re celebrating your basketball victory. and at yet another your math teacher is explaining the pythagorean theorem. later on you find yourself in a lecture hall and your university lecturer is passionately talking about circular economies. every class uses up whatever energy you have left in you before the final tick of the clock gives you the green light to go home. the academic year feels interminable, but the moments you spend with your friends at recess or in-between classes are never long enough. and as soon as you hop on the endorphins jetski of summer vacation, it’s like it all went by the second you blinked.

then you’re in this phase of life when you don’t have a proper understanding of time anymore. what is a day, an hour, a minute? what, I’m 26? what do you mean we’re in june already? and it becomes especially true if you have chosen some academically challenging degree, or one that just requires many years of continuous grind. it also applies to people who have to juggle multiple jobs simultaneously, because one alone does not pay the bills and allow some extra cents to rest in the bank account. but generally speaking, as a working adult, the understanding of time can be narrowed down to pretty much one word: brief.

from my end, lately I’ve felt so out-of-shape. not physically—although lab life has taken its toll on my knees and back recently—but consciously. I am unable to discern how much time something needs, as every time I try to, it slaps me in the face with how much longer it ended up needing. additionally, in academia, the sentence every minute counts appears to not be a mere exaggeration of the urgency of things. everybody wants everything—now. the clock is ticking, the moment you drop all your experiments for good is approaching, you’re finishing up things, you’re panicking over the amount of things left to do, but that damned clock is ticking despite it.

life in academia in itself is governed by its own kind of numbers: how many pages you should write, how many figures are allowed, how much you need to pay the journal, how many hours have you spent on this and that, and the list goes on. and sometimes I feel like time is a concept that academics just don’t get. because why is it that they are stressing about timelines, yet have skewed understandings of how much time things actually need? and because every academic is stressed over time passing and work still left to be done, the stress just naturally perpetuates. I know that because it happened to me this week, and I cannot tell you how bad it made me feel to stress out someone else, simply because I got caught up in my own spiral (over time passing quickly).

and honestly? someone might say that time is what you make of it, but those are probably the same people who say we all have the same 24 hours in a day. breaking news, no we don’t. I don’t have the same 24 hours as a medical doctor or a social media influencer or a working single parent-of-three. I definitely do not have the same 24 hours as someone struggling with their mental health or trying to regain their energy that was stripped away by chronic illness. I surely do not have the same 24 hours as an employee paid hourly, someone with a relatively less demanding lifestyle, or someone who’s forced to take on multiple jobs. the conclusion? no, we don’t. so, time might be what you make of it, but no one can convince me that they always have the energy to make something out of their time.

and the questions to ask here are: when does it stop? (again, a question about time) and how to let go?

because, see, when you are in this constant race against time, it’s hard to stop running. it’s like when I spot my friends, who train for marathons, running in downtown—they don’t pause. they can’t pause. there’s a momentum that was built up, there’s a limit to respect and a record to beat if possible. they can’t just pause. they wave “hey” from afar and keep going. they don’t stop until the finish destination.

so… when can I log in on strava that my time of running is officially completed? (again, a time-related question).

and I know some people say that time is a social construct, like you’re not behind because the idea of a timeline for your life is made-up. while I do believe that everyone’s calendar is unique and different, I’m also just worried about the pitstops of that timeline. why haven’t I met the love of my life yet? isn’t it too early for them to be married? what if I don’t graduate in time enough to get a job that hires a PhD without thinking they’re overqualified? if I don’t meet someone now, when will I have enough time to get to know them better before deciding to start a family—knowing that I don’t plan on becoming a parent right after getting married?

my God. it’s hard to have a constantly-working brain.

so, friend, if you’re also part of that marathon against time, I would like to hold your hand, and run by your side. just like in marathons, there are “time stamps” (I think that’s what you call them. I don’t run marathons, but I’ve attended a semi-marathon once as a spectator). and the idea of those time stamps is to discern between people’s running times; you know, people who complete the semi-marathon in, say, 2 hours for example, versus people who complete the race in 1 hour. so, maybe you and I don’t fall in the time stamp of people who have accomplished x things before turning 27. nor do we fall in the time stamp of people who have already figured out who they are and what they want to do in life. maybe you and I fall in different time stamps, ones that reflect the pace we are each able to reach and eventually maintain. ones that represent, not necessarily how prepared we are for this marathon, but rather how we choose to invest the resources we have to reach the finish line. maybe it feels like we’re in the “later” time stamps because the people in front are too focused on their PR and their goals, that they forget to enjoy the adventure and cheer back to the people cheering for them, unlike us.

and the thing is, we all finish the marathon eventually.

I’m not implying that after writing this paragraph, I suddenly am less worried about time passing, nor that I know how to manage my worry of losing the time that I have. on the contrary, I’m in this phase where there is an important and impending deadline I have to meet. but I will try to remember that everything I’ve ever started, I have successfully completed. I’ve always kept my promises, and this race against time will be one of those promises that I wish to keep and complete. it’s scary, I can’t deny that, but above all else, be patient. be present. be supportive.

above all else, keep trying your best. for this marathon you will fall in the a certain time stamp, but you will learn and eventually you will improve. the next marathon, you’ll be in a different time stamp, one that reflects you as well as what you’ve learned for the last.

I believe in you, friend. I believe in us making it to the finish line. remember though—above all else, be patient. be present. be kind. and let Life assemble the rest for you.