tcs-5 Redefining Time

Let’s start by taking a look at the phenomenon we call TIME. What is it? What is it capable of? How do we relate to it?

The Power of Time

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the character Gollum poses a riddle:

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers

Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,

Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!

The answer to the riddle, of course, is TIME! 

Time is so powerful that either you control it or it controls you!

Is time working against you or for you? In the arena, are your matches hectic and reactive as you struggle to make the right moves in a timely fashion? In life, do you have too much time on your hands or not enough to do what needs to get done?

Time is the most important and most powerful unit of measure in our lives.

Any unit of measure can be manipulated.

Take a one quart jar and fill it with marbles, is it full? No — you can still pour sand into it. Can you fit anything else in between the marbles and the sand? Sure, just add water. My point is simply that like the quart, a second is a unit of measure and a container.

The question is, “How many events can you squeeze into a second?”

Sound like time-management? It is, in a sense. Managing time can be expensive. In the corporate world, billions of dollars are spent each year on time-management, ranging from studies of how to make workers more productive to seminars on the subject for every level of employee.

On a personal level, we think time flies when we’re having fun. We say, “I think the clock stopped” when we’re stuck in a boring class or meeting.

Time really does seem to slow down or speed up depending on the circumstances. This phenomenon is at the heart of TCS/CM. One of our Daily 8 training exercises is to understand the phenomenon of time dilation and to consciously control time during any situation.

Using the Daily 8 and taking control of time-flow in daily life will aid you in controlling time during a fight or in a dire situation AND it has a welcome side-effect: It can be a vehicle for improving other areas of your life.

Most of us have had the thought that if we could only go back in time we could change the world. (Sounds like a science fiction movie ... or two or three.) On a much smaller scale, almost every one of us has made some mistake that we would give our eye teeth to go back and undo.

Let me give you a personal example:

While writing the copy for the course website, I was on the phone with the woman I work for. I had called her to tell her that we had just closed a large deal and made a considerable amount of money as a company. I knew she was going to visit her gravely ill father and thought she needed some good news. At the end of the conversation I said, “I hope everything is okay with your family” but I knew it was not. I realized before I’d finished the sentence that it was the wrong thing to say. I was speaking as if I had no clue what was going on. I could not go back in time and change what I said, but instead applied the concept behind TCS/CM to the situation and seamlessly added, “or as well as it can be during these trying times.”

No, we can’t go back in time. But being ready with an appropriate answer all of the time is better than having a perfect answer some of the time. Time Control Sports can help you achieve this.