The transcontinental railroads led to the invention of time zones. For the first time, everyone needed to be in sync, regardless of what village one lived in.

A few generations later, we’re in all in sync, to the second, thanks to the computers in our pockets.

Time is borrowed, wasted, spent. We find the time, slow down time, take our time. It’s Miller, quitting, clobberin’ time. We focus on the stitch in time, hard time, closing time, not to mention big, daylight savings, race against, first, last, due, nick of…

Time is so variable, so based on our experience, that the absolute measure of time is almost meaningless. Don’t even get me started about relativity and time travel.

Time on a long bus trip goes so much slower than time spent doing what we love with people we care about. We’ll pay $1,000.00 to buy an hour in some circumstances, but refuse to pay a $5.00 premium to save an hour in others.

Time doesn’t exist, not in a way that matters to most people. The story we tell ourselves about time, though, is the overriding narrative of our day to day lives.

Seth Godin has written fourteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership, and, most of all, changing everything.

*Image courtesy of Alan Cleaver.