Gandalf on time
'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’ — Gandalf
This is the very first edition of the One Thing at a Time (OTAAT) newsletter. It will always touch on time and how we use it and try to illustrate the power of doing one thing at a time. It will always consist of fewer than 500 words. It won’t usually feature religious text or fantasy fiction so much.
In its very early life, if you like it, I’d especially appreciate feedback and/or your forwarding it to anyone else who you think might also enjoy it. If you received it this way, you’ll get one every Wednesday if you sign up at https://marczaosanders.com/newsletter. Shorter-form content goes out more frequently via https://www.instagram.com/marczaosanders.
'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’ — Gandalf
In this scene from Lord of the Rings (the book; it’s put differently in the film), Frodo’s just complained that he wishes he didn’t have to deal with the Ring and all its collateral damage. Gandalf’s response, the quote above, is deep and subtle, as we might expect from a wizard. There’s a lot to take from it, for humans and hobbits.
It’s partly about acceptance. We don’t choose when we enter the world or what’s going on here when we do. We might have been born in an Ice Age or the Bronze Age or into the Neo-Babylonian Empire or during World War II or in the year 2525, or never at all. That’s out of our hands, along with what we inherit genetically. We might not like all or any of this but a big trick in life is to accept rather than lament.
It’s also about agency. In the time that is given to us we can and must choose well what we do. That’s our gift and responsibility as a cognitively advanced (with a System 2) species. We have a handful of decades to make some good decisions and that’s it. That’s all there is. That’s the meaning of life.
Superficially, acceptance and agency may seem at odds with each other: acceptance is about being comfortable with things as they are; agency is about proactively and intentionally changing things. But actually, they cohere just fine. Acceptance is not absolute. We need to accept that there is much we can’t change but the rest is up for grabs and up for us to grab it (agency). The Serenity Prayer encapsulates this neatly:
…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time.
The skill boils down to identifying what — precisely, for each of us, individually — we can and should change. That will probably be mostly about ourselves, myself, yourself. How hard you work, how much you read, when you exercise, who you compare yourself to, who you find time for, who you neglect, what you eat, and when you do all of this.
So we should make even more effort to make even better decisions. Right now, today, and for as much of life as we can. That’s all we have, and it’s everything.