The foregone alternative.

• Author: Hochart, Cindy
• Position: MIND & BODY

THE ALARM CLOCK is a detestable, but necessary, evil in our world of never-ending deadlines and deliverables. From sunrise to way beyond sunset, our days are chock full of tasks to be completed. Whether it is work demands, shuttling kids to soccer practice and dance rehearsal, or serving on committees for this, that, or the other thing, the one constant seems to be that the demand for our time always is going to exceed the capacity of the time and attention we have available.

Day after day we race the clock to get all of the things on our to-do lists done. Whether we actually are accomplishing more is debatable. We may answer more emails, but does that really count as accomplishing something? We are writing and replying to texts, but is that really communicating?

We have become humans doings rather than human beings. We resemble super-charged robots with our wiring a bit frayed. The human experience should include time to enjoy the process of being human. We need time to connect to one another and to share experiences. When was the last time you had coffee with a friend for the pure enjoyment of it, with no concerns about the clock and its incessant ticking? Are you taking time to play with your kids (or grandkids)? Have you noticed how they have little awareness of passing time?

As adults, we have to earn a living, it is true, but this is not new to our species. Men and women have had work to do since the beginning of time. For many of us, though, since work is so mobile, we take it with us wherever we go. We answer emails during the kids' Little League games, have conference calls while driving, and answer texts at stop lights. It is not at all unusual to look around in a restaurant and see four people at a table, all looking at their phones. The result is a high level of stress and frustration, short tempers, and a low level of life enjoyment. Over time, this lifestyle takes its toll on our health, relationships, and level of enthusiasm for life.

Here are five things you can do to limit the human doing in favor of the human being:

Design your life intentionally. Life can get away from us without our noticing it. We have to start making intentional decisions to have intentional lives. Would you turn down huge promotions if the lifestyle tradeoff is too great? If the cost of the increase in pay is an increase in time away from the family, sometimes we win by saying no. Whatever the case, we need to start designing our lives rather than...