Not knowing what day it is turns out to be good for you

At half past six, the alarm clock jolted me out of my sleep, I was completely lost as to what day it could be, had no idea what I was supposed to do and why, but fortunately, I did recognize the man next to me. That was a pleasant surprise.

After some digging in my head, it turned out to be Monday, the day I had promised myself to start cycling fifteen kilometers while it was blowing a force six wind. It could be that I briefly considered pretending it was Saturday, but after that cycling came work, so it turned out to be an unfeasible plan.   

Have you recently heard someone ask you whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday? How come you sometimes don't know what day it is? It has everything to do with your sense of time in quarantine , because that is gradually disappearing. Now that the days are starting to look more and more alike and blend into each other, you lose your sense of time.

Normally, I have personal training on Thursday, have drinks with colleagues on Friday, visit my mother on Saturday, and know who works in the editorial office on Monday. Now I have drinks on a daily basis, see no one except the waving neighbor, and start my day with a bike ride or walk in the woods (because walking makes you smarter).

Losing track of time could actually be good, philosopher Joke Hermsen explains to Trouw. Until early March, it was still hour-by-hour, but now there suddenly isn't so much value attached to time. You no longer hyperventilate yourself through a traffic jam because your nine o'clock appointment is probably already waiting on the doorstep. And you also decide for yourself what time you eat, when you call, and whether you finish something in the evening so that you can now go to the hairdresser (!). 

At the moment that hours began to determine the height of your income (that was somewhere around the industrialization), pressure was put on time. Because: fewer hours meant lower costs, and voilà, there's your recipe for stress. Time is money, and thus time automatically also becomes something stressful.

But now one day opens up (which for me didn't go as peacefully as it sounds here), the other closes, without time having much influence on it. Of course, you work, but you are freer in organizing (yes) your own time. The pressure on time therefore decreases. By the way, having too much time can also be a bit overwhelming, but even better is to try to break free from all those hours and days and weeks, according to philosopher Hermsen. The way would be to not look at time as something you have, but as something you are.

Let that sink in for a moment, yes, you now have plenty of time for that.

Source: Trouw