Good morning.
Forgive me for even considering such, but I almost planted an exclamation point at the end of “morning.” It is indeed morning as I write. I’ve eased into light, speech, and a little thought, but that I would even consider assailing your mental ears this early in the day with the kind of volume implied by that loudest of punctuation marks, well, I apologize for almost falling into such brutish behavior. Those two words followed by an exclamation point become a contradiction in terms.
So, settling for the more civil ante meridiem (as in a.m. for morning) greeting, we move on into the day, fire up, log in, open up the computer, delete a few dozen ads and several phishing attempts masquerading as legitimate emails, and peruse this real one: “Note to Committee on Committees Members: Wednesday’s meeting regarding the creation of another committee to further complicate the lives and work of the many too many committees already created to complicate our lives has been moved forward by two days.”
Here’s the question: Is that Wednesday meeting, “moved forward by two days,” now set for Monday or Friday?
Okay. Pause. Take your time. Don’t lock in your vote and alter your calendar too quickly, but do take notice of your first reaction.
It’s clear to me that the meeting is now set for Monday. But I also know, and so do you, that a significant number of other folks will be quite sure that the meeting is now set for Friday. If we’re the ones wording the message, we know very well that we’d better spell out the day or confusion will reign. Two groups half the size of the whole will find themselves meeting on two different days four whole days apart. The confusion hinges on that simple word “forward.”
According to author, psychology lecturer, and BBC broadcaster Cynthia Hammond in her book Time Warped, the little vignette above illustrates how very practically in our daily world the way we associate time and space and the way we feel about time “moving” separates us into two groups. Hammond says that those, like me, who now plan to head to the meeting on Monday, see time itself as moving “like a conveyor belt,” the future coming towards us. Those who plan to meet now on Friday see themselves as moving in time towards the future.
As Hammond writes, “either you stay still while the future comes toward you or you move along towards the future. It’s the difference between thinking that we’re fast approaching Christmas or that Christmas is coming up fast.” Either point of view is defensible; the point is that each of us defaults into one or the other.
I find this sort of thing fascinating. But far more important than whether the future is heading toward me or I’m heading toward the future is the fact that my Father holds all of time and all of the times of my life in his warm hand.
See ya Monday. But my vote is that we cancel and spare the world one more meeting and one more committee.
You’re invited to visit my website at http://www.CurtisShelburne.com!
Copyright 2018 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.