The Time Paradox

The Time Paradox

By Sarah Z. Wexler - June 19, 2008

Somehow, Philip Zimbardo, one of America's most influential psychologists, with a professor emeritus gig at Stanford and more than 50 books to his credit, found time to sort through 36 years of research about, well, time. He observed that we tend to fixate on either the past (nostalgics), the present (hedonists), or the future (goal-oriented workaholics like you). In his latest, The Time Paradox (Simon & Schuster), Zimbardo makes the case for shifting the focus. A few suggestions:
IF HAPPINESS IS ALWAYS IN THE FUTURE, THEN YOU'LL NEVER BE HAPPY. By always looking to the next goal, you don't appreciate the present, says Zimbardo. And humans are just not good at predicting what will float our boats: We can work for a decade to reach Director and not realize until we get there that we had it wrong. The good news is that we're also bad at predicting our unhappiness, so even if you've been busting ass to keep your job, odds are getting fired won't make you as miserable as you thought it would.
DON'T GET CAUGHT IN THE DATING TIME WARP. New love makes us "present-oriented imbeciles deaf to the language of the future," says Zimbardo. (Hello, staying up till 3 talking on a school night.) Have fun with your new BF, but keep in mind that if you don't sort out what tense he lives in, at some point you may be wondering where your 2.5 kids are while he's thinking about tying one on that night.
THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR TIME IS ENJOY IT. Americans are taught to value hard work over pleasure. "Time spent working is considered productive, while time spent being happy is considered wasted," says Zimbardo. But it's a nonrenewable resource. Keep happiness from falling "to 10th place on the to-do list behind picking up the dry-cleaning," he says, by carving out an hour each day to do exactly what you want to do. And don't bail on that date with yourself.

TIME BY THE NUMBERS:
- 7: Billions of hits retrieved by a Yahoo search for time, the most popular noun in English.
- 16: Average hours per workweek Americans describe as "unproductive."
- 266: Minutes a day Americans spend watching TV, our biggest leisure pursuit.
5.0 out of 5 stars - 158 of 170 people found the following review helpful

"Our ability to reconstruct the past, to interpret the present, and to construct the future gives us the power to be happy"

March 9, 2009 By Alexander N.

The authors, Drs. Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd have done a superb job in describing how people's time perspective can influence their behavior. The writing is clear and is accompanied by relevant research and many stories, descriptions, and histories. Dr. Zimbardo is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University and Dr. Boyd is a former student of Dr. Zimbardo, now working as research manager at Google.
People can have 3 "time perspectives"; they can be past-oriented, present oriented, or future-oriented. Based on their time orientation people behave differently. This conclusion is based on research done during the last few decades by various research scientists including Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd and is helpful because by understanding how people orient to time, we can partially predict their behavior. Thus people's time orientation can complement other models of personality development.
In order to figure out their time perspective, one can take two tests that have been developed by Dr. Zimbardo called the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and the Transcendental-future Time Perspective Inventory (TFTPI). These tests are available at [...].
Obviously, we have a limited time on earth; so it is advantageous to make the best use of it. By gaining an insight into what type of time perspective we have, it is hoped that we become more efficient users of our time.
People who have different time perspective behave differently and we can make general statements about their thoughts, feelings, and behavior:
Past-oriented people:
1- They are generally more concerned with their past and seem to be able to distance themselves from the realities of the present or the future.
2- They usually tend to be traditional, religious, and conservative.
3- They have a stable sense of self.
4- They usually tend to be family- and group-oriented and are distrustful of strangers; thus they may have a tendency to be prejudiced.
5- They usually focus on their obligations and commitments whether personal or collective (i.e. family, cultural, or tribal obligations).
6- Rituals and myths play important roles in their lives.
7- They may have guilt as a dominant feeling.
8- They usually try to maintain the status quo and thus may not be progressive.
9- They usually do not take risks and are not adventurous.
10- Within their group, they usually tend to be dependent and cooperative rather than competitive.
Present-oriented people:
1- They tend to focus on the present and their current sensations, feelings, and concerns while ignoring commitments made in the past or for the future; thus they are more concerned with "what is" than "what was" or "what may be".
2- Their thinking is more concrete rather than abstract (i.e. one hundred dollar right now is much better than two hundred dollars in the future).
3- It is difficult for them to give up temptations or delay gratification and thus they are easily distracted from the performance of necessary current tasks and tend to be procrastinators.
4- They tend to concentrate on activities that bring pleasure and avoid pain.
5- Their knowledge or insight may not deter them from performing actions that may not be beneficial to them.
6- They are usually more sensation and novelty seekers, more aggressive, more depressed, less conscientious, and less emotionally stable. They have less concern for future consequences, less ego and impulse control, and less preference for consistency. They also tend to lie.
7- Usually people who are poor or uneducated tend to be present-oriented since they usually tend to focus on emergent needs of the present.
8- Since they are not good in abstract thinking, are more concerned with immediate gratification, and less concerned about the future, they usually tend to get low grades in school.
9- Because they are immediate pleasure seekers, they usually don't pay good attention to their health and can additionally abuse substances.
10- They are usually considered to be fun people to be around.
Future-oriented people:
1- They are more focused on their future than the present or the past; their thoughts are concerned with the future consequences of their present actions; they logically analyze various outcomes that may result from their action.
2- They are goal-oriented and can delay gratification and endure an unpleasant situation in order to achieve long-term goals. They pay attention to responsibility, liability, efficiency, distant payoffs, and tend to optimize future outcomes. Thus they can work hard and avoid temptations, distractions, waste of time to accomplish a goal. They usually tend to rehearse various future plans.
3- Since they are concerned about the future, they tend to save their money and resources.
4- They could be either cooperative or competitive depending on which action results in the best outcome.
5- They tend to be health-conscious in order to prevent future negative health outcomes.
6- They may be unable to enjoy fun activities due to the fear of wasting time.
7- They may have difficulty in intimate relationships since they thrive on control, predictability, and consistency, factors that may interfere with the freedom and spontaneity of relationships.
8- Although they usually have low anxiety levels, concern for the future may increase their anxiety. They usually tend to be workaholic, and have midlife crises.
9- They tend to be more conscientious, less aggressive, less depressed, more reward-dependent, less sensation seeker, more studious, more creative, and use less addictive drugs and alcohol.
10- They tend to have more self-esteem, energy, openness, ego-control, and grade-point average.
Time paradoxes:
Four main paradoxes are:
1- Time is one of the most powerful influences on our thoughts, feelings, and actions, yet we are usually totally unaware of the affect of time in our lives.
2- We can buy food, objects, space (i.e. land), but not time. Once we lose time, we lose it forever.
3- Each specific attitude toward time--or time perspective--is associated with numerous benefits, yet in excess each is associated with even greater costs.
4- Individual attitudes toward time are learned through personal experience, yet collectively attitudes toward time influence national destinies.
Time perspective subcategories:
The past and the present time perspectives each have two subcategories and the future perspective has one category as follows:
1- Past time perspective:
A. Past negative perspective
B. Past positive perspective
2- Present time perspective:
A. Present fatalistic perspective
B. Present hedonistic perspective
3- Future time perspective
Additionally, there is another category called transcendental future perspective.
Description of time-perspective subcategories:
1- Past-negative people: They have had sad, painful, or traumatic past experiences.
2- Past-positive people: They have had happy, pleasant, and enjoyable past experiences.
3- Present-fatalistic people: They believe that fate, not them, is in charge of their life. They live more passive lives since they don't believe in their personal power.
4- Present-hedonistic people: They like to enjoy life. They are impulsive, spontaneous, and risk-takers. They tend to lose themselves in the excitement of the moment and have passionate relationships.
5- Future-oriented people: See above.
6- Transcendental future people: They believe that their lives do not end at the end of their biological life. They are usually religious, have good impulse control, and are not aggressive. They think about future consequences based on the assumption that there is an afterlife.
Balance in time perspectives:
As the third time paradox states above, each time perspective has both beneficial and detrimental outcomes if they are practiced to an excess. Thus it is believed that having only one of the three time perspectives is not healthy and a balanced time perspective is more favorable. The authors suggest that for North American population, the combination of the following time perspective is ideal:
1- Low past negativism
2- High past positivism
3- Low present fatalism
4- High present hedonism
5- High futurism
6- Medium transcendental futurism
Things one can do to achieve a balance time perspective:
The good thing is that people with imbalanced time perspectives can reach a balance by changing their attitudes and behavior. For example, although people who have a negative past can not change their past, they can practice reframing their past by changing their attitude toward what happened. And people who want to become more future oriented can write down their goals, chart their progress, make to-do lists, and work toward long-term rewards. Many other suggestions are mentioned in the book to reach a balanced time perspective. Obviously changing one's time perspective requires much effort because one has to change deeply ingrained beliefs and habits. However, research shows that such a change is achievable and people who achieve it have happier lives. "Our ability to reconstruct the past, to interpret the present, and to construct the future gives us the power to be happy" (p. 257).

Book Review: The Time Paradox

by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd

Posted on June 10, 2012 by antalainen

The Time Paradox is a book that makes you really think about how you spend your time. Through practical examples and some scientific research the authors make a very clear point: the way you treat your time determinates not only your success, but also your happiness throughout your life. While reading the book, I realized that in a way I’m already making a lot of things right. My attitude towards my time has been more or less correct. I did find some things to improve too, so in that sense it was not an useless reading.:)

Notes:

• The paradox of time: Your attitudes toward time have a profound impact on your life and your world, yet you seldom recognize it.

• Nothing that any of us does in this life will allow us to accrue a moment’s more time, and nothing will allow us to regain time misspent. Once time has passed, it is gone forever. So, although Ben Franklin was right about many things, he was wrong when he said that time is money. Our scarcest resource, time, is actually much more valuable than money.

• In spite of the many valuations we assign time, and in spite of the fact that time is our most valuable commodity, it is striking to note how little thought we give to how we spend it. If a slightly annoying acquaintance asked you to invest money in her new business, you would probably consider the costs and benefits of the proposed transaction. If you judged her project a bad investment, you would have no problem saying no, even at the risk of offending her. After all, who rationally throws money out the window? But suppose the same acquaintance asked you to dinner. Chances are you would not engage in a similar cost-benefit analysis. No matter how little you wanted to go, you would probably take an hour out of your packed schedule to meet for dinner—all the while perhaps feeling resentment because of the time you sacrificed on something you did not want to do.

• No matter how you choose to invest your time, you face the costs of forgoing another activity—perhaps limitless opportunities—for the one you choose. With money, you have the conservative option of keeping it in the bank, but not so with time. Whether you like it or not, you spend time every moment of your life. It continually seeps out of your pocket.

• People are more likely to regret actions not taken than actions taken, regardless of outcome.

• Viewing the world from a future perspective may lead you to be “on time,” while viewing the world from a present perspective may lead you to be “late.”

• We believe that your individual attitude toward time is largely learned, and that you generally relate to time in an unconscious, subjective manner—and that, as you become more conscious of your attitude on time, you can change your perspective for the better.

• Future-oriented people tend to be more successful professionally and academically, to eat well, to exercise regularly, and to schedule preventive doctor’s exams.

• In the course of a typical day, you make hundreds of decisions, such as what to wear, what to eat, what to do with your free time, with whom to associate, and whom to avoid. On any given day, these decisions appear trivial, even inconsequential. Taken as a whole, they define who you were, who you are, and who you will become.

• Your time is precious. You pass through this life only once, so it is vital that you make the most of the journey.

• The message is clear: Don’t sleep your life away, or you’ll be sorry. Use your time wisely and well and work out your problems as they arise, rather than ignoring or dreaming them away.

• Psychologically, what individuals believe happened in the past influences their present thoughts, feelings, and behavior more than what did happen.

• You can approach changing your attitudes toward time as you would approach changing the course of a river. In both cases, small changes over time can have a dramatic effect.

• Most people assume that their memories accurately capture what happened in the past and that these memories are permanent. Unfortunately, memories do change over time. They are not an objective record of the past, as though a video of an event had been saved on a mental hard disk. Rather, memories are reconstructed, and their reconstruction is influenced by current attitudes, beliefs, and available information. This reconstructive nature of the past means that how we think and feel today influences how we remember yesterday. Even such subtle influences as the way in which we are asked about the past can dramatically influence our memory of “what really happened.”

• Your attitudes toward events in the past matter more than the events themselves. You cannot change what happened in the past, but you can change your attitudes toward what happened. Sometimes changing the frame can alter the way you see the picture.

• Attitudes toward the past are key to the development of gratitude, which allows you to appreciate your life in the present.

• Those who reported most involvement with their families were most likely to be highly past-positive.