As I go on about my daily activities, and pay attention to even the smallest things - like getting a train ticket of my pocket to present to the conductor - I realize how severe my fear of losing time is.
I suppose I've always possessed a certain anxiety to not be "on time". Oddly enough, however, as uncomfortable as I may be about being late, I am not the most punctual person, on top of that I have a rich history of procrastination. I've experienced many times an inability to complete tasks on a well planned time line, and and only scramble under pressure - power down, receive creative ideas, and manufacture a desired product shortly before the deadline.
At times such a method proves effective, but often it does not... Music learning and performance preparation is certainly in the later category.
So why is it that I possess a borderline OCD attitude towards some things, but not others? As I continue this self observation, I see that it's the unimportant thing that I often freak out about. The smaller things. It goes along with feeling worry when other people have deadlines, and I feel as if it is in my hands to remind them and set a project in motion... There is a desire for efficiency, and I manage often quite well with moving about efficiently, but when I fail to book every moment I gain a certain sense of failure.
Failure is a place of doom, and also is actually an imaginary problem... What is living in the moment? This "live in the now" advice everyone (including myself) is quick to give is rather vague. Technically the true present moment doesn't exist for us humans, for whatever it is we experience has already happened. The milliseconds taken for the information to be transmuted through our mind and interpreted leaves the happening itself instantly in the past.
It seems to me that my anxiety and fear of losing moments goes hand in hand with a fear of emptiness. If there isn't anything here - to do, to say, to contemplate, then what is there? That glimpse of silence with self... It doesn't qualify as a worthily spend time as it pertains to my mentality... Which is fascinating, for that has been my journey - awareness, consciousness, returning of the self, giving away of the self, and existing stress free. Meanwhile, I go from "event" to "event", and Universe help me, it has to be an uninterrupted chain, OR ELSE!.... Hmmm....
I may understand on some shallow theoretical level that stress is self created, and my thought has all the power a mind needs - my body still communicates fright even in the least significant instances... Perhaps, a more often reminder is needed, that what I see is my mind, and in any given point it is allowed to change, gently.
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