New National Priorities Require Balanced Time Perspectives
Philip G. Zimbardo, Doctor en Psicología Social,
Stanford University
President-Elect, American Psychological Association

The September 11 terrorist attacks forced awareness of a new enemy breaching our nation's gates. It also made me aware of an old enemy that has been secretly insinuating itself behind our mind's gates. The enemy is time, or more specifically our collective development of a distorted time perspective. We have become a nation out of temporal balance. We have allowed ourselves to become trapped in a "time crunch," as many surveys reveal. Americans in large cites and small rural regions report feeling ever more busy, not having enough time to do all that is necessary in their hectic lives. We are working harder and longer than ever before, not taking vacations, and with all our time-saving home devices and services, there is still never enough time. This time press makes us angry at having to wait for anything that is not on time, irritated at those who keep us waiting, stressed out by delays. In order to complete our extensive daily to-do lists, we cheat the system by cutting down on all non essential time-wasting activities, such as going to church, family rituals, and hanging out with friends, according to national surveys.

Paradoxically, technology is one contributor to this temporal imbalance in our private lives. The phenomenal success of modern technology has fueled remarkable corporate profits over the last decade. It has done so by idolizing nanosecond efficiency, doing more, faster, cheaper. And that model has seeped across the once impermeable boundary between work and home. We work at home as hard as we work at work, and take work with us as we travel because we must be efficient to achieve our goals, to have successful careers, to make it. Dot comers in Silicon Valley modeled how 12-18 hour work days could make millionaires of techies barely past adolescence.

That capitalist corporate mentality and its at-home version gives dominance to a future-oriented time perspective, where abstract mental manipulations of cost-benefit analyses, probabilities and contingent planning rule. Time perspective is the mind's way of parsing the flow of human experience into zones of past, present and future. In an optimally balanced time perspective, these components are blended and flexibly engaged depending on the demands of the situation, our needs and values.

A positive past orientation connects us to our roots, to our heritage, lineage, family, religion, and national rituals. It gives us a sense of stability, of our self over time, it is where positive self esteem is nurtured. An moderated future orientation gives us wings to soar to new destinations, to seek new challenges and opportunities by envisioning scenarios of possible future selves. Blending in a present hedonistic time perspective adds spontaneity, sensation seeking, openness to novelty, to playing with life, to being in the moment with friends and lovers, and to allowing emotions to be fully experienced and expressed.

In the era before the World Trade Center tragedy, this fundamental human triad had reached a tipping point where for many Americans excessive future orientation left little mental functioning to appreciate the virtues and values of a balanced time perspective in which past and present play vital roles. But something wonderful seems to be emerging from those ashes, from the suffering and from the heroism of ordinary citizens that we have all witnessed repeatedly through media portrayals. Our priorities may be shifting away from the socially isolating, selfishness of an exclusive focus on future, on success, on making money, on career achievement. We have begun to reach out with a collective compassion for our fellow human beings, to break out of our self-centeredness to take time, to make time, for our children, family and friends. We are volunteering our services, giving our blood and money, and yes our even time -- for many Americans their most valuable commodity ---- to make a difference in our national recovery process. We are allowing ourselves to feel strong emotions usually contained, for men to cry, for women to express vulnerability. Hopefully, this reordering of our personal and national priorities will not be a transient experience just filling the current vacuum of lack of structure and clear direction. Perhaps this time out of standard time will sensitize many to the deep significance of family and social support, to the comforting guidance of religion, to the ultimate value of embracing the joys and wonder of existence and valuing the journey and not just the destination.

Technology and its future-based value system should serve human needs and human values not sever or distort them. Wouldn't it be wonderful if America's response to the diabolical destruction of terrorism was to reinvent itself as an even stronger nation because of renewed civic engagement, because of awareness of the fragility and preciousness of every human life. Developing and sustaining an optimally balanced time perspective is crucial for such changes to endure in our psyches and actions. Yes, work hard when there is work to planned and missions accomplished. Play hard when the work is done and it is time to permit self indulgence and social connectedness. And remember to honor the past with the wisdom and stability it contributes to our root values. It is a new time for this inner and outer transformation to take shape, to slow down and more fully treasure each link in the human connection. It is time for personal reflection and national commitment to enriching the quality of our private and public lives by more fully embracing this vitalizing sense of optimal temporal perspective

Con autorización del autor para ser publicado en la página web del Colectivo Psicología y Desarrollo Nacional.