– No, I am curious – replied Daisy Fuller, who then smiled and started to tell a hidden story to her daughter: her relationship with a man called Benjamin Button, who was born old and grew younger until he died as a baby. Daisy was relieved telling the story and, in the end, Caroline discovered the fantastic man was her father.

The passage above was extracted from the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, directed by David Fincher in 2008, which starred Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as the protagonists. The film is an adaptation of a short story written by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1921. It tells the story of a man who leads his life in reverse.  When Fitzgerald wrote this bizarre story, he was subverting one of the biggest human anguishes: the perception of getting old and the certainty of its epilogue – death.

If we could choose, we would rather see our bodies to get better, and not to inevitably deteriorate in anticipation of death. As we don’t possess this property, all we have left is our imagination, which can get a little help from literature and cinema.

But Benjamin Button is not Connor MacLeod, the Highlander, a unique immortal Scottish warrior born in the 16th century. Benjamin lives an ordinary human lifespan, and shows us that even if we try to hold back time, we cannot beat death. Wise Daisy knows this truth and deals with it with the wisdom of someone who has lived intensively. Thus she’s not afraid, but only curious.

Death is a champion subject in world literature, only perhaps scoring drawn with love. And both are commonly linked, as in Romeo and Juliet, in distinct versions. Possibly, what makes our love for life so immense is the great fear we have for death. But should we avoid life to have the illusion of not dying, like someone who doesn’t want a puppy because of the certainty of suffering when it dies?  No, because the mystery of death isn’t bigger than the mystery of life, and one category belongs to the other. Note that to live presuppose to die, and dying means to have lived. They are inseparable. We are facing a unique mystery that, for escaping our understanding and control, anguishes and depresses us.

Epicurus was right when said he didn’t fear death for the simple fact that he would never meet it, as while he’d be alive death wouldn’t be present, and when death would arrive, he would no longer be here. The philosopher’s argument has a perfect logic. The problem is that we don’t face death logically, but emotionally.

As thinking beings we try to rationalise, repeating those truths that in the end bring no consolation: such as ‘To die you only need to be alive’ or ‘As soon as a man is born, he begins to die’. These are Epicurean sentences, all bringing up one truth. But when death is the subject, we’d prefer a lie, the immortality illusion, the deceit of “there’s only life”.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying”, said Woody Allen, in one of his genius moments. I’m sorry, Woody, but it won’t be possible. What is left for us is to live as if we were not going to die, thinking and glorifying the miracle of life; otherwise we’ll die before dying, as explained Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents. On this work, Freud sets death’s perspective as one of largest sources of human unhappiness. To die before dying means not to live in spite of being alive.

Epicurean logic, Freudian Science, and Woody Allen’s witticism are correct. We are the ones that are mistaken for suffering that which we cannot control. We are used to thinking we are gods, that reason brings us control, that desire is infinite. Suddenly we discover our limitations and we desperate. You and I will die, and that is the ultimate truth of living. Thus let’s face life with humour and gratitude and not miss the opportunity of making this world a better place with our own presence.

Emperor Augustus, dying on his bedstead, asked for a mirror so he could fix his mane before saying to the ones who were assisting him: “If I have played my part well, clap your hands, and dismiss me with applause from the stage.” The Roman was right. To die is to leave the stage, and all we have to do is to accept the play will have an end and that we must play our roles as virtuosi of this fantastical theatre.

Wouldn’t the secret to avoid suffering because of death be to believe that it is only a phase of eternal life?

The secret to mitigate the suffering is indeed to believe in something, as doubt paralyses us. Man is made of reason, emotions and beliefs, being the latter built from the matter that constitutes the first two. Beliefs are created from values and desires, they exist to make our lives better, and those who have beliefs are the only ones who can question them.

Epicurus, for example, anticipated the atomic theory saying that everything is formed by minuscule particles in movement, and he believed that this theory was applicable not only to our bodies, but also souls.  He used to say that man and his soul are nothing else but matter in movement, and when this movement is interrupted nothing else is left. This was his belief, which gave him tranquillity even to play with destiny.

Whereas for the Buddhists, death is an illusion, nothing really dies, specially our soul, which is our true essence. What matters is to reach the nirvana, which would be an elevated psychological, loving and free from anxieties state. This state is only achieved through detachment and meditation. In other words, to reach nirvana and become eternal, man needs to build his own nirvana on earth through his own attitudes.

Apparently opposed, Epicureanism and Buddhism have something in common. Both credit all the merit to life as we know it. For Epicureanism this is the only life we have, therefore it deserves to be lived in full; for Buddhism the final spiritual nirvana will only be achieved through the psychological terrestrial nirvana. Both theories propose that we give value to life, making the good and transforming it into something worthy.

Since we cannot pretend death doesn’t exist, all we can do is to create the most comfortable belief. Death is a mystery, so life is. But we have the illusion we can understand life because our sensory organs can perceive it. We measure, think and touch life, but not death. Death is metaphysics, and it is beyond any logical interpretation.  We know what the end of life is, but we don’t know what the beginning of death will bring.

As we don’t know, we simply believe. And belief is imagination, not certainty. However its power is irrefutable, capable of using thoughts to calm the emotions down. In the end, this is what matters, to think and to feel alive. There are only two ways to consider death while life exists: to ignore it or be mindful of it. The first is useless, while the second at least brings more cards to the game of life, creating new perspectives.

Death is also present on daily facts, separations, and end of cycles. Shouldn’t we be more used to it?

Three are the factors about death that really scare us: the unknown, which is always frightening; the resistance in abandoning life, which is adjacent to instincts; and the passage, which can be loaded with suffering. As a friend of mine says with his peculiar humour: “I believe that life and death are both good. The problem is the transition.”

Yes, we are used to the idea of death. What we probably won’t get used to is its presence in our lives. We accept death, because we are reasoned, but we will always strongly react to it in two circumstances: when it is premature or when it is close. We don’t like to know that young people die. It doesn’t seem natural. There is a hint of injustice in soldiers who don’t return from the war, in young men and women trapped in their car’s skeleton after nights out, in children with leukaemia in hospitals or starving in miserable countries. We think no one should die without having the chance of living a life. We don’t like death near us, scything our people, taking our grandparents and our parents. This is when death is evil, taking away us from our loved ones, each time reminding us that it will be back for us one day – it is only a matter of time.

At least the majority of us have reasons to be happy for having lived. No matter what was the mystery, the adventure of living is great, notwithstanding the stumbling blocks, of course. It is not possible not to meet suffering. It is inherent to our human condition. And amongst those sufferings is death, sometimes camouflaged, peeping on us.

Faith, Psychology, Philosophy, Literature, Mysticism, they are all prodigal in approaching the theme of death, but none of those shapers of the human thinking ever had the courage to deny two facts: all of us have to deal with death, ours and of others; and that we will inevitably suffer because of it.

It wouldn’t probably be intelligent not to die. Eternal life would be very tiring. But certainly it is not intelligent to die before dying. Ergo a text about death is innocuous, unless it is a clamour to life. To live for real is the only warranty that, when the time comes, we will be curious rather than afraid, just like Daisy Fuller was before dying.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

It was in that period that the word politics appeared, deriving from polis, which means city. In the original, to be politic means to demonstrate interest and preoccupation for the city’s well-being, and this is how everyone should behave, taking care of their own interests without offending the collective. Everyone’s and the collective’s will and needs should be in harmony. Isn’t that a simple idea? Companies are part of the society; they are subjected to the same principles that rule the occidental civilization, including politics.

Unfortunately this concept suffered changes of understanding. Nowadays to be politic imply to agree giving to receive. People confuse the search for power with the collective well-being. There are some companies that allow and even stimulate this second line politic, believing that internal competitiveness will bring higher performance. That’s a huge mistake, as the competitiveness focus is dislocated from the market to inside the company, while competing companies might be doing their homework and establishing themselves. In the company, to be politic means to exert the practice of collaboration, clarity, and understanding.

To be politic does not mean to agree with others, without searching the group’s harmony by pacifically accepting the managers’ opinions. To be politic is to use your intelligence to find the convergence of interests besides the divergence of opinions. To be politic means to employ the noblest human condition: to behave like a citizen, aware of your duties and rights.

By the way, amongst the Greek, the one who didn’t have a politic behaviour, expressed by the interest for the general well-being, wrapping himself in the flag, was called of a suggestive name – idiot.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

- “Hey Roberta, long time no see, huh? How is life? And Claudio, how is he doing?” – I shot, asking several things at the same time, a trademark of meetings after long separations.

- “I’m good, working a lot, finished my Masters” – and amended an explanation about her dissertation. I have always pictured her as a very intelligent and focused person; never doubted her academic success. She was excited talking about her activities, but not a word about her personal life, about her marriage.

- “Congratulations, girl, I knew you’d go to the top. But what about Claudio? Is he still at that company? Still playing ball?”

- “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what he’s been up to. We split up oven a year ago. No one told you?” No, no one had told me; even because we didn’t have many friends in common. But the news had a weird effect on me; it was like someone had informed me of the fall of an institution. I had their good relationship as an example.

- “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But what happened? You were so close, or at least seemed to be.”

- “I don’t really know. All I can tell is that, with time, things started to change, until we felt we didn’t have any more dialogue between us. While we were talking about our plans and personal dilemmas the things went well. When we stopped talking, opening our hearts, the relationship started to sink. Since love was gone, we preferred to break up before we lose respect for each other. I also think it’s a shame, but I can tell you it was good while it lasted.”

Dear Roberta have just made a quick technical analysis of the end of her relationship: “It was good while it lasted and it was over because of lack of dialogue”. It’s hard to say if love dissolved due to the lack of dialogue or if the dialogue has rarefied due to the volatilisation of love.

What this story tells us is that dialogue, communication, opened hearts – from what Roberta said -, either being symptom or cause, deserves special attention. Because dialogue can be the remedy for all ills, once it permits the unifications of ideas, emotions, dreams and also sorrows, that can only be solved if brought to light, if become clear, if a bridge to connect our souls is constructed.

This bridge is the dialogue. Suddenly I remembered a short poem I made when I was the a graduation patron: “Choose to be a bridge, dear youngster, never a wall / Bridges unite, walls separate / Bridges put hearts to dialogue / Walls make the intentions mute and debilitate souls / Choose a bridge to reach the future / A simple bridge / But a bridge that shows the way to love”.

No, dialogue didn’t lose importance in our current, fast, globalised, technological, cybernetic, blogging, tweeting world. But dialogue has been apparently overlooked by those who think it does not match with modernity, and especially by every man or woman who have put it, conscientiously or not, the pyramid of human values upside down.

Let’s make it clear: dialogue is an intention, regardless of the environment. It is possible to maintain excellent dialogues thought tools such as skype, MSN, SMS and similar. Tools that can be well or badly used, like everything in life.

How does true dialogue happen? -  “To a monologue with you, I prefer a dialogue with myself!” The outburst-sentence above can be a joke, or part of it, but it contains the truth, as it is not uncommon to see what seems to be a dialogue – two people talking – is in fact is an unilateral speech, on which only one speaks and the other only listens. Even though sometimes necessary, it is not a dialogue.

Knowing how to dialogue is more than knowing how to speak. Dialogue presupposes hearing and analysing before replying. “Dialogue is to listen without judging, without taking a position immediately. It is to respect, to include, to use appropriate mental filters. Dialogue isn’t taking sides, defining what is right or wrong, or excluding what isn’t part of my personal life”, says the psychologist Lamara Bassoli, coordinator of the School of Dialogue of São Paulo.

Yes, there is an institution to help people and companies (that are nothing else but groups of people) to recover the capacity of dialogue, promoting “transformation of human experiences and conscience amplification”.

Considering life is a set of interactions, dialogue is the essence of life. “Dialogue is to pay attention, it is a reconnection with yourself, with others, with the environment, with nature” continues Lamara, who speaks softly, always looking in the interlocutor’s eyes. It can seem strange to exist a school to teach dialogue, but the idea isn’t exactly new. In Ancient Greece, the Education already thought of it. Education was – and still is – the way to stimulate young people to live autonomously and to collaborate with the polis, with the society, which was focused on the life in the city at that time.

In the city-states of Ancient Greece there was a space dedicated exclusively to the practice of dialogue: the Agora, the place to make exchanges, to exercise politics, trade, and ideas in general. The School of Dialogue has a similar space, destined to stimulate free, rich and respectful dialogue.

So is it possible to learn how to dialogue, to improve the ability of communicating and understanding the others? In the Antiquity, when training young people became a social activity of major importance, the study was divided in two great chapters. One of them was called the Occupational Skills that sought giving the young a craft, a technical, operational competence, something with a certain scientific character. Then they would become something that nowadays we would call businessman, entrepreneur or specialist.

The other chapter, mainly for youth from more privileged classes, was composed of the Liberal Arts – a set of studies whose purpose is to provide the youngster with knowledge and skills that would allow them to more easily handle the citizen’s necessities, being able to use their influence to live happily producing well.

The so-called Liberal Arts were divided in two chapters: Trivium and Quatrivium. Both, in their turn, had their disciplines. Trivium was composed by grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. The Quatrivium was divided in arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.

Note that the Trivium’s aim was to develop man as a structured being for communication. Grammar teaches how to deal with words, with the logic of constructing phrases, the beauty of language. The rhetoric is the art of speaking, of speech, of ideas externalisation. The dialectic presupposes the contraposition of ideas as a way to elevate thoughts.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

This subject demands attention and 90% of the people wouldn’t have the answer on the tip of the tongue. But this is something to think about, as in a society that is used to valuing talented people and on which companies say they dedicate themselves to attract, develop and retain talents, seems like to not identify a special talent in yourself has became some kind of deadly sin. To demystify the subject it is useful to remember a few principles. Having a talent doesn’t mean to be born with a superior intelligence, an artistic ability or an unique quality. Talent is not a gift that comes with birth. Talent is developed with practice, for which time and persistence are demanded.

Every person has the innate capacity of improvement. Everyone can become very good on a subject or activity and then be considered a talent. Finding your own talent depends, in part, on life opportunities and, in part, on personal determination. In the HR’s world, a talented professional is the one who, despite of his good performance, doesn’t acommodate and keeps searching for more learning and improvement.

Talent is the capacity of making a job well done, to learn relatively easily a subject and, above all, to feel pleasure doing what you do. Therefore, being a talent is more allied to the field of the personal choices than to destiny determinism – opposing what many think. It is almost impossible not to be considered a talent after having dedicated part of your life to a work with commitment, determination and affection. If you haven’t found your talent yet, let it find you.

Give it a chance. It could be camouflaged in any worthy work that gives you the feeling of being useful. A job that gives meaning to life is more than just a job, it is a mission, and it it also the protein that will give body to your asleep talent.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

When it was invented, money had the purpose of facilitating exchanges. Before money came up, the only alternative was the famous bartering, the practice of swapping a product or a service for another. If a chicken farmer needed milk, for instance, he would have to offer eggs for the dairy farmer. It wasn’t a bad idea, but the problem was to walk around the market with eggs in your pockets. Or even worse, litres of milk.

It was when someone had the idea of creating a sort of “standard measure” for things, something that was relatively rare, but could be quickly recognised and measured – like salt, for example. For quite a long time, rock salt was used as currency. Therefore, if 5 litres of milk cost certain amount of salt, the buyer didn’t have to bring eggs, but a small bag full of white little rocks. And the same little rocks could later be exchanged for eggs, chickens, bread, clothes, transportation, housing or general services.

Employees, for example, received from their employers a quantity of salt that would permit them to attend their living coasts. There is the origin of the word “salary”, still used nowadays. With the passage of time, the salt was substituted for something more practical, such marked stones or coloured shells. Nevertheless, this practice brought the possibility of the indiscriminate production of these exchanging units. So someone had the idea of minting metal pieces, called “coins”, under the authorities of the State supervision, to organise the value of things and people’s work. From coins to paper bills, to bank account and to credit card was only a matter of improvement.

This way the world became more practical. But men acquired something a little hard to deal with too, as the value of money is not only absolute, but also relative – what generates some discomfort, because all that is relative will eventually incur great variations amongst people.

The confusion with money lies in the different ways that people perceive it.  For some the power of money lies within the act of exchanging; for others it is money itself that is a sign of power. Because the value people give to money is so different, it is not surprising that conflicts have surged amongst them.

To spell it out, money is not a good or a bad thing. The good and the bad come from what is made with it, and not from money itself. Even sacred texts ratiocinate this way. “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”, we read in the Bible (1 Timothy 6:10), what puts some order around and dislocates the evil from the money itself to what is made to obtain it and to what is done with it. However we cannot deny that there are very ambitious people, who evaluate the others for their capacity of earning money and exhibiting their conquests.

How to contain ambition? We have seen that money doesn’t have value for itself, but it is worth for what it can provide. Therefore, its importance is relativised by each one’s necessities and desires, what we could call degrees of ambition.

Ambition is not a bad destructive feeling. But it can be if transformed into an obsession. Furthermore, ambition can work as a kind of energy source to existence, making people and the world move ahead. Besides, ambition doesn’t have a moral on its own – it assumes the moral of the ambitious person, with the same dimension, purpose and desire.

About this subject, two very profound books explained me a few things. The first book “Is Capitalism Moral?, written by the French philosopher and professor of University of Paris André Comte-Sponville, taught me that ambition is neither moral nor immoral, it is amoral.

The author compares this human quality with the water that falls from the clouds: “The rain is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral: it is submitted to laws, causes, and to an immanent rationality that has nothing to do with our senses of value”.

In other words, ambition is as natural as the meteorological phenomena: can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances, intensity and what we do with it. Although social ethics has further considerations on this matter, valuing ambition whilst criticising it. How to sleep with a noise like this?

Let’s now observe what the second book says. “Our Immoral Soul”, by Rabin Nilton Bonder, is a sophisticated analysis of biblical texts and Jewish parables about the facts of life. In one of the passages he tells the story of a wealthy man who went to get advises from a Rabin. Right in the beginning of the consultation, it is the religious who asks a question:

- “What are you used to eat?”

- “I am quite modest with my demands. Bread, salt and water is all I need” – replied the man, thinking he would be praised for his humbleness.

- “What do you think you are doing? You should eat meat and drink wine as a rich person [that you are].”

Later, the disciples questioned the Rabin’s surprising reaction, and he promptly explained:

- “Until he eats beef and drinks wine, he will not comprehend that the poor need bread. While he feeds himself with bread, he will think that the poor can be fed with stones”.

Those who somehow don’t use all their potential of life, diminish the potential of all the rest. If we were braver and feared less the possibility of being perverse, the world would have less unnecessary interdictions and would certainly be of better quality.

Yes, the superfluous limitations act like a blockade on the evolution flux as much as the superfluous acquisitions. I other words, the very ambitious and the little ambitious are both harmful to the society. The search should be focused on the healthy ambition, on an exact measurement, on which one moves away from conformity, but does not approach greed.

Dealing with money

Is it possible to learn how to deal with money in a way that it doesn’t become an objective itself and neither is considered as something of a minor importance? This is called financial literacy – to develop a personal competence that will allow you to deal well with money, without overvaluing or underestimating it.

Another good expression is “to make money”. If we don’t count the heirs and the lucky lottery winners, we all have “to make our money”. We don’t “win” anything – we earn it through commitment and work.

This is an essential lesson for all of us, as work is the only way to produce the rock salt required to get what we need and to attend our wishes.  Whoever thinks differently than that, either greedy people or companies that decide to profit from financial operations and end up moving away from their true reason of being, will eventually be punished. The latest worldwide financial crisis, which spread all over the planet as a grasshopper plague, is there to prove the thesis.

No, money is not everything. Men are able to produce much more than currencies, countable values and letters of credit. From humanity came architecture, music, poetry, and medicine. The question is that men need algorisms to reach their major goals and it is on this path that they get lost, confusing the ends with the means, leaving things at sixes and sevens.

What we need to learn are the dimensions of our behaviour where the money resides. The first dimension is to know how to earn it – and it depends on preparation and work. The second is to know how to spend it – and here enters the logic, as simple as it is disregarded, of not spending more than what is earned. These two dimensions are fundamental, but there are two others, complimentary: the saving dimension, as we never know the surprises the future can bring, and the investing dimension, which means to put the surplus amount into something that will make the money grow with time.

The American psychologist Frederick Herzberg explained the value of money to companies to motivate employees. He said that the salary fits into a motivational category he called “hygienic”, as they are only noticed when missing. “If the remuneration is fair doesn’t motivate, but if it’s not, disincentives people”, said Herzberg.

The specialist’s vision lights up the importance of money in our lives. Money doesn’t guarantee happiness, but when it is lacked, it is quite possible that we meet sadness. There is no way we cannot agree that money is not everything in life, but it is not clever to imagine that money isn’t anything.

However, as caution and chicken soup never harmed anyone, be warned, because in this long-established partnership between “people and money”, in which you also take part, it is mandatory to define who dictates the rules.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

While we commented the mistake the door opened and guess who entered the lift? The terror himself! It was all silent, until someone dared to ask the old professor if the exam was actually going to be on the 3^rd or on Wednesday. The professor looked at the note, and keeping the same untouchable tone, he replied with another question: “What do you think?” It was when another colleague, from the back of the lift, said something unthinkable: “Whoever makes the day right already gets 2 points on the exam.” We imagined that the bold guy was going to be blasted by the professor, but for our surprise, he said: “How good it is to keep the good mood and joy in the heart. Hold on to that, young man.” He smiled and left the lift without clarifying the question. Since then we started to note that professor Mario, the wisest man we knew, was endowed with a fine pleasant humour, which was present in the most difficult situations, and complicated decisions. He always found a way to uncloud the atmosphere and motivate people. His preceding fame was unfair. He didn’t accept lack of attention, incompetence, or disrespect, but he used to appreciate intelligent humour.

Life taught me that seriousness is important for the career, but we have to redefine seriousness. Serious engaged professionals are always improving and searching excellence. When seriousness is translated to commitment (with the company or with workmates), it is related to result. Although, seriousness meaning not being cranky. Leaders that can unite seriousness with good mood are more likely to create pleasant atmospheres and achieve higher performances.

By the way, the exam was on Wednesday, when we actually had classes with professor Mario, a very good-humoured serious man.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

This president is a champion of assertiveness. He knows the company needs results to survive. However he is interested in sustainable and growing results, which can only be achieved through people that are in constant evolution. For this reason, the genuine desire for learning became a sought-after quality in the corporative world.
Due to visions like this, companies are becoming schools.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between this type of school and the University you went to. At the University you had a professor with whom you shared the responsibility of your training. In the company, this responsibility is entirely on your shoulders. If the companies appreciate who wants to learn, they have special predilection for those who don’t wait for someone to come and teach them. The duty of learning is exclusively yours. In that sense, curiosity, intellectual uneasiness and the continuous search for knowledge started to be part of the range of characteristics companies appreciate. Well, at least the well managed companies.

Regarding what the president said, we have two variables, which leave us with four possibilities. Let’s see: who displays low performance and high desire for learning is a potential – the company invests. Who displays good performance, but limited desire for learning, is accommodated – the company questions. Who displays high performance and great aspiration for learning is a talent – the company recognises and retains. Lastly, who displays both variables in low levels no longer finds a space – the company eliminates.

Note that in the human resources world, being a talent is not about having a special ability, artistic gift or superior intelligence. Being a talent is to be able to combine performance with the will for learning and evolution. Therefore, being a talent is a question of desire.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

The only ability man had, in regard to time, was its measurement. For that he analysed cycles, such as the Moon and the Sun’s movement; he observed its effects over nature, and then standardized the period of the years, seasons and days, which were later divided in fractions called hours, minutes, and seconds. In his arrogance, man was confident that by measuring time he would also control it. Sweet illusion. Time measures only served to increase the sensation of time’s passing, as it drains off through our hands like water.

But it is not a lost cause. We humans might only be mere mortals, but we have a tool that allows us to control, if not time itself, then at least our own existence. This tool is called conscience. Conscience permits us to coexist with time from three different points of view: Physics, Metaphysics and Ethics. According to Physics, time can be measured. In the metaphysical ambit, time can be felt. And Ethics says time can be experienced.

Physics has the most obvious relation, and it is with a physical instrument that we started measuring time: the clock. However, the clock only tells us that time passes by – what we do with this information is our problem. Beyond the physics, time is a feeling and has variable duration, contradicting the clocks. Observe: two minutes under the dentist’s drill are longer than 16 minutes listening to Ravel’s Bolero next to the person you love.

Finally, Ethics brings the most conscientious individuals’ attention to an evident fact: time is a scarce resource that cannot be replaced, and its quality will rely on what we do with it. As Marcel Proust once said: “Love is the space and time measured by the heart”. He may well be considered an expert on the subject, as he dedicated over a decade to write nearly 4000 pages, published in seven volumes, focusing on the human relationship with values, time amongst them. The French writer named his complete work “In Search of Lost Time”. In the last volume, ‘Remembrance of Things Past’, the author makes several returns to the past, and discovers that only memory can confront time, and our peace of mind will be proportional to what memory will find in the past, which determines the quality we give to the time we have ahead to live.

We can feel and measure time. In that case, is it there at our disposal?

Time is there for us to use, but in the end we are the ones that are used by it. Therefore, to establish a peaceful relationship with time is a wise thing to do. Feeling and measuring time are related, as both allow us to notice that time is continuous. How? Well, to feel and measure how the hours go by are useful initiatives, as they help us to decide what to with the time we have. In this way, our peace with time will be directly proportional to the peace we establish with our choices and decisions – corresponding to each of our values.

The English scientist Stephen Hawking, who occupied “Newton’s Chair” at Cambridge University, wrote a book called “A Brief History of Time”. At some point, amongst intricate scientific concepts, he proposes that time must be analysed based on three arrows: the cosmological arrow, which explains the expansion of the universe; the thermodynamic arrow, which explains the constant modification of things; and the psychological arrow.

Yes, even the most important physician cannot analyse time’s facts without an appeal to Psychology. Matter’s intricate enigmas are related to time’s mysteries since its beginning – when man began to play out his role on the stage of the universe, his thoughts and feelings added new ingredients to the play, either a comedy or a tragedy.

The greatest contribution of Physics to this matter is the idea of relativity. Einstein’s sophisticated discoveries about the speed of light led us to abandon the idea of a unique and absolute time. “Thus time became a more personal concept, relative to the observer who measured it”, said Hawking. Our relationship with time is based on our values, options, decisions and guilt. This is psychological time. I spend more time on things that are more important to me. The question is to know your values.

Back to the Greeks. Chronos is the god of measured time, hence expressions such as chronogram, chronology, and chronometer. In mythology he is represented as an evil god who eats his own sons, symbolizing what time does with us nowadays – it seems like we are devoured by it. Whereas Kairos is the god of lived time, of the choices we make, of the way we seize our lives. Chronos is quantitative, and Kairos is qualitative.

The first sensation is that Chronos is an enemy and Kairos is a friend. The first wants to overwhelm, and the latter to set free. This is merely a sensation – in practice, we need both, since we cannot choose happiness without organising ourselves to reach it. Kairos extends us his hand. Chronos pushes us. But it is necessary that we know what we want and that we get organised.

Does wisdom consist of establishing connection between personal values and the management of our available time?
Mythology illustrates humanity’s anguishes very well. Zeus, the most powerful of gods on Greek Olympus, was Chronos’ son. But neither of them knew they were related, because Rea, mother of Chronos’ sons,  kept the information secret. Zeus only assumes power when he opposes Chronos and wins a battle against him. He was wisely advised not to kill his opponent, as he would be killing his own time and consequently would be imprisoned in the instant, without memory or future.

Zeus’ strategy for triumph over Chronos was to cut his tendons, and to tie his head up to his feet, creating a circle with his body. From that moment, the god of time also started to be the god of repetitive actions, cyclic events, such as day and night, and the seasons of the year.  In practice, Zeus conquered Chronos and dominated, even ‘administrated’ him. Our modern life does not differ from this. All of us have 24 hours per day at our disposal, and I am certain that you know people who benefit from these hours, produce, work, take care of themselves, have fun, and cultivate relationships. But you may also know other people who complain about the lack of time, the speed of happenings, the sensation of inconstancy, and the lack of control. Practically, what really happens is exactly the lack of control, of logic on the organization of priorities. The diary does not exist to slave us – on the contrary, it sets us free, grants autonomy, possibilities, achievements.

Nevertheless, management is only the second key word. The first is choice. We make our choices based on our values, and we create a strategy to achieve our purposes. Strategies rely on resources, amongst them the rarest and most expensive of all: time.

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)

Translation: Melissa Mussak (melissa.mussak@gmail.com)