My family asks me, ( I was going to say "people," but then I realized that at some age, you only get gifts from your family), "what do you want for your birthday?" Substitute holidays like Christmas or Father's Day in the slot for birthday and the question is the same. My answer is always the same, time. I want time with each of them, all of them, as much as I can get. A day with my son, a weekend getaway with my wife, a weekend to wander with either of my daughters doing whatever either wants to do. Once you have all that you want or need, and realize that you don't need anything else, all there is left is what you cannot buy or create and that's time. I am a time-addict from way back in my life, but the starkest and most shaping of those times was when I was in high-school. I lived my life each day according to the ringing of bells, 42 bells to be exact. Let me back up. My high school was Mt. Michael High School , out in the cornfields of Elkhorn, Nebraska. It was at the time and is now, a five day per week boarding school, allowing students to go home on the weekends. Most of the students lived in Omaha, Nebraska, less than 30 minutes away. This was serious college preparatory. It was an all-male school, strict rules, run by the St. Benedict monks. You tested to get in, with only one out of three applicants accepted. You can take the movie nightmare pictures out of your head now, it was a great place to go to school. There were funny and fun people there and our little tiny school of 135 kids won state in football and basketball my senior year, in part because of my lack of participation. How do you move 135 young men from place to place within a school and dormitory and not have to explain yourself to the UN war crimes board? You train them to respond to a series of bells that signal behaviors. Time to wake up. Time to get up. Time to eat. Leave class, be at class, end class be at next class and so on. If you add chores, study halls, intramural activities, other meals and various other movement requirements in a day, the number is 42 bells. It probably sounds de-humanizing, almost military. That is because it is, to a point. Movement, low value activity. Action/learning/recreation/chores/eating are all high value activities. Randomness in low level activity wastes the time that could be used for the high value activities. I do not need bells, 35 years later, to alert me as to what to do next. I also do not need alarms on my watch, phone or computer. 35 years ago, over 4 years, there was an integration built into my central nervous system between time, schedule, priority and almost a sixth-sense when the time to change was up. A good friend of mine teased me about it once as we were wrapping up a phone call. He said, "It must be about 30 minutes we've been on the phone." I asked what he meant and he said, "Our calls last about 30 minutes, every call, you can set your watch." I looked at the phone and the phone said 28 minutes and 30 seconds, leaving 90 seconds for good-byes. This is a friend, no agenda, just talking and I was internally ringing a bell. I went into an industry that loved increments of time more than I did, the call center business. Before systems that would handle many of the statistics management for a leader in a company, some of the cross-calculation of different business segments had to be done manually. For areas of the business performing poorly, that might mean statistical review on a 15 minute basis. All business statistics were reviewed and aggregated on a 30 minute cycle. These calculations and communications were done real-time. These were not completed in reports in the next day. The boss would ask and you would provide when he or she asked at any time throughout a shift. Any manager in that business could do arithmetic in his or her head separated or aggregated on the fly with as many as 60 data sources for 15, 30 and 60 minute cycles. Time was not just measured, but it was performance affiliated, rewarded or punished. Up until about 2 years ago, at almost any time, day or night, I could tell you the time of day within 5 minutes without a watch or clock, just by gut. You know why. A metronome had been hammered within me from my school and then career that did not turn off. There were horrible side-effects. My brother states the quote frequently, "Friends are those people with whom you choose to waste time." What happens when you do not know how to waste time? The metronome beats and the brain asks, "Why are you not in productive action?" Time-watchers are future fearers. When you do not watch the time, you truly cannot live in the moment. You are with the person or people around you. Whatever action you are engaged in is absorbing, without the inner-voice nagging you, whispering to you, "You should be doing something else." Time-watchers count down to an ending moment, closing with a diminishing quality the final moments of value as termination of that activity completes and the next must begin, on time. My wife is not a time-watcher, or at least much less so than me. She laughs until the last minute we leave where we are, whether we are late, early or on time in our departure. Her focus is complete on what she is doing when she is engaged in her favorite hobby. It is like calling a 4-year old to chores to get her attention away from the joy of the moment and engage her in the mundane of some scheduled other activity. She does not break watches, ignore clocks or set fire to calendars- they just do not own her in the ways that they have owned me. I have gotten better about some of my time-obsessive issues. Counseling is helpful. I'll sum up what I learned from my counselor; "QUIT BEING SUCH A F*CKING TIME FREAK! IT'S ANNOYING!" I'm certain it was said differently and in a more professional way, but hey, it was twenty plus years ago, give me a break. I married Jen. Jen is unmovable in her commitment to not being pushed around by me on this time nonsense. We don't fight about it, ever. She just ignores me. Having a heart-attack, epilepsy and two brain surgeries helps put things in perspective… wah,wah,wah. If you really want to know what's taken the edge off, it has been all of the medication. The neuro-transmitter suppressors make all of my ability to focus on time as a life-driver have been dramatically reduced. My schedule is very fluid because I am not able to run things. I write when I can. I talk to people when I can. When I can't, I don't. I don't have a schedule, a clock, or a metronome. I have a capability curve within my mind and body over which I have no regularity or control. God took away this set of operating systems from my framework. What replaced it? Well, perish the thought that I have become a Jedi Master. That did not happen. My workout program will keep me healthy, but not Speedo-qualified. My greatest replacement has been writing, talking to people and being with my family. That makes it sound like I am retired. I'm not, but I am not owned by the metronome most of the time. That quiet is a great gift. I know so many people who are owned by their calendar, appointment reminders, and telephones. I wasy those people, three years ago. I don’t miss it. Not at all. I had to have a bunch of health scares and drugs to get away from it. I don’t recommend those as a way to change behavior. I also don’t think incremental change works. The time management and control that I had was an addiction and I knew mostly addicts. Classes and reading and life-coaches did not help for very long. I stopped being an addict because I stopped being around addicts and I threw away all of my time drugs. I don’t know how you can do it. I can truly just say that the other side of that type of addiction is amazingly liberating.