I Have So Much Time. Here’s Why You Don’t.

I Have So Much Time. Here’s Why You Don’t.

Every January I get to sit with people who are full of hope. They come in wanting a fresh start. They want to heal. They want to feel better in their bodies. They want more peace, more energy, more joy, a brighter year. And almost always, their New Year’s goals sound remarkably similar. I want to lose weight. I want to heal. I want to read more. I want to meditate. I want to finally take care of myself.

All beautiful things. Truly. And every single one of those goals quietly asks for the same currency: time.

Somewhere inside days that already feel completely full, we are supposed to find another twenty minutes, another hour, time away from our families, time alone, time to be disciplined, time to be consistent. Underneath it all is this quiet little belief that if I can just add this one thing to my life and do it well enough, I will finally be happier on the other side.

If this has worked for you, I genuinely celebrate that. If you have set goals like these and loved both the process and the outcome, congratulations. I mean that. I, however, am roughly zero for thirty-four on New Year’s resolutions.

For a long time, I thought the answer was better goals. Better frameworks. Better systems. I thought about productivity books, realistic expectations, SMART goals, reward structures, discipline, habit stacking, all of it. Then recently, in a coaching session, something landed so cleanly that it stopped me mid-sentence.

The problem was never how I was setting goals. My goals kept asking me to add when what I desperately needed was to subtract.

People tell me all the time that I have so much time. They say it with this sort of confused disbelief, like I have figured out some secret loophole in the universe. I am a full-time mom who cooks and cleans and shows up deeply for my child. I am interested in raising a human who understands emotional intelligence, regulation, curiosity, compassion, accountability and love. I show up for my marriage with intention. I manage a household and all the invisible labor that lives inside of one, the calendars, the logistics, the remembering, the planning and the thousand tiny things nobody sees.

I also work. A lot. I see clients. I teach. I create. I consult. I study. I support other businesses and people I love. I work out five days a week. I sleep like a baby. I love a nap. I watch movies. I read constantly. I meditate for hours. I have spent years studying healing, energy medicine, complementary wellness, the body, the mind, the spirit and the strange beautiful place where all of those things meet. And somehow, through all of that, I genuinely feel like I have time.

Abundant time.

That rattles people because one of the things we seem to have collectively agreed upon is that there is never enough of it. I think that may be one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves.

There is so much time.

We have built our lives around measuring time in hours, minutes, calendars, deadlines and productivity, as though time is something we can hold in our hands and watch disappear. I experience it differently now. Time lives in moments. It lives in awareness. It lives in presence. One of my favorite lines from Collateral Beauty describes time as the terrain between love and death, and God, I love that image. Because there is so much terrain.

I don't think most of us lose our lives because we weren't productive enough. I think we lose pieces of them because we fill every available space with things that were never actually our deepest yes.

I spent a huge part of my career in hospitality, and I want to be very clear about something here. I have never met more capable, driven, creative, heart-led humans than the people who work in this industry. Planners, florists, chefs, caterers, photographers, designers, rental teams, venues and all of the people behind the curtain making impossible things happen before anyone else even walks through the door.

There is romance in what we create. There is artistry and intention and a very real belief that when we host people well, we can change the way they experience one of the most important days of their lives. We mark moments. We witness love. We build memory. We create places where people gather, laugh, grieve, celebrate, reconnect and remember what matters. This work matters deeply to me.

And somehow, surrounded by all that beauty and purpose, almost everyone I know in hospitality still feels like they are running out of time.

A meaningful life can still become relentless when every minute is filled and every breath has somehow become another assignment. Productivity can become a very convincing place to hide. Constant stimulation can keep us from hearing ourselves. Motion can save us from having to sit still long enough to notice what hurts. Even beautiful work can swallow our ability to experience the beauty we are creating when we never stop long enough to actually be inside of it.

There is a line from Pirates of the Caribbean that has stayed with me for years. When someone says the world is getting smaller, Jack Sparrow replies, “The world’s the same. There’s just less in it.”

I think about that all the time.

When someone tells me they do not have time, I understand exactly what they mean. Their days are full. Their responsibilities are real. Their exhaustion is real. I also believe most of us have far more time than we can feel when we are moving through every minute on autopilot. We fill our lives so completely that we lose our ability to experience the time we are standing inside of.

Sometimes the question is not, “Where am I going to find more time?”

Sometimes the better question is, “What am I filling mine with?”

What am I doing because I actually want to do it? What am I doing because I am terrified of disappointing someone? What am I doing because I think accomplishment will finally prove something about me? What am I consuming because silence feels uncomfortable? What would happen if I stopped treating every empty space like a problem that needed filling?

If you are moving through your days checking boxes in the hope that eventually you will accomplish enough to finally feel worthy, successful, smart, beautiful or lovable, I don't know that efficiency can ever give you what you are actually asking for.

Because you are already enough.

Who you are exists beyond your productivity, your achievement and your to-do list. So if you find yourself setting another resolution that asks you to pile something else onto a life that is already overflowing, I want you to consider something radical.

Subtract.

Maybe you subtract the belief that you aren't smart enough and would finally become powerful if you read enough books.

Maybe you subtract the belief that being thinner would make you more wanted and being wanted would finally make you feel loved.

Maybe you subtract the story that you are broken and that your entire life is supposed to be one endless project of fixing yourself.

Imagine what might appear in all the space those beliefs have been occupying.

If you read that and think, “Okay, Meagan, that sounds beautiful, but what the hell do I actually do with it?” start ridiculously small.

Take three slow breaths. Feel the air move through your nose, your throat and your lungs. Notice the temperature of it. Feel the places where your body meets the floor or the chair. Hear whatever sounds are happening around you. Feel your clothing against your skin. Let your mind arrive in the same room as your body.

That took maybe thirty seconds.

Notice what happened.

Did thirty seconds feel longer than you expected? Did you become aware of something you hadn't noticed before? Did your shoulders move? Did your breath deepen? Did the room suddenly seem a little more detailed?

This is where I think so much of our time has been hiding.

How many times during the day can you return here? How often can your mind, body and spirit occupy the same moment at the same time?

One of my favorite practices requires you to add absolutely nothing to your schedule because you already do it every morning and every night. When you brush your teeth, switch hands. Use your non-dominant hand. Look at yourself in the mirror. Feel the bristles against your teeth and gums. Slow down enough to experience an activity you have probably done thousands and thousands of times without remembering any of them.

Then bring gratitude into it. Think about your teeth and everything they have allowed you to experience. Meals you have loved. Words you have spoken. People you have kissed. The ridiculous snorting laugh you probably wish nobody had ever heard. All these tiny pieces of being alive that we almost never stop to consider.

Then look at the person staring back at you.

Really look at her.

She has shown up for you every single day of your life. She was there on the days you were powerful and the days you were absolutely positive you couldn't keep going. Every version of you carried something so that this version of you could be standing here now.

Using your non-dominant hand for a familiar task interrupts autopilot. It makes you pay attention differently. Suddenly you have to feel what you are doing. You have to be there for it. Pair that kind of presence with gratitude, and an ordinary two-minute part of your morning can become something completely different.

This is one of the things I love most about mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, energy medicine and mind-body-spirit work. Healing does not always need another enormous task added to your life. Sometimes the work lives inside what you are already doing. Sometimes it is learning how to inhabit your own body again, how to notice your life while it is happening and how to stop racing toward some imaginary future version of yourself who has finally earned permission to be happy.

When your days become filled with a little more awe and wonder, the exact same life begins to feel different. The dishes are still there. The emails still need answering. Your kid still needs something approximately every seven seconds. Work is still work. Life remains gloriously, frustratingly human.

But you are in it.

You taste your food. You hear your child's laugh. You notice the person you love sitting across the room. You feel the hot water on your hands. You look up and realize the sky is doing something spectacular for absolutely no reason. You become present enough to notice that your life has been happening around you this entire time.

And somehow, time begins to feel bigger.

That is how I stopped trying to find more of it.

I started remembering that it was already here.