Peanuts, Priorities, and the Flow of Time

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a CEO who, somewhere between checking his phone and adjusting his tie, declared: “I just don’t have time to pursue what I really want.” It was a very solemn moment. Almost moving. Had it not been for the fact that, during our 20-minute chat, he checked his phone 17 times. That's once every 45 seconds—20 if you subtract the part where he closed his eyes and said “Mmm” to pretend he was listening

- Debashis Chatterjee

This obsession with being busy—without actually being productive—reminds me of college, where my friends and I had a word for such behaviour: time-pass. Imagine this: a group of half-asleep students, munching peanuts from a paper cone, producing a small hill of peanut shells while the lecture droned on in the background. The goal wasn’t learning, the goal was killing time. In truth, time wasn’t dying. We were. Slowly, but with excellent dental, rather than mental, exercise.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Time is not some magical commodity you can stockpile in your cupboard like noodles packets during a lockdown. Time is simply thought flow—a stream of ideas floating through your mind like a lazy river