Time, strawberries,bikes...and something about mental health?

Time is a very interesting, confusing, fluid concept, which is perceived very differently and is even sometimes the cause for stress or anxiety.

Apparently you can: save time, bide time, waste time, forget time, loose time or spend time. But what is it that we do with our time? When is it considered to be used meaningfully? Nowadays there are so many ways to "save time".

A car, to get you to places quicker, machines that with a few clicks of a button plant strawberries.

🍓 Watering and spraying systems to spray them with chemicals, then you click the button to harvest and pack em' up.

After that they go to a factory, where they get mechanically manufactured into jam labelled 'grandmas original jam' and then pumped into glasses, labelled and distributed. And no worries, even if it's not strawberry season in Poland right now, you don't have to miss out because grannies finest, will be shipped straight from New Zealand, or artificially grown in your local greenhouse for your convenience.

🍓And with this whole concept there is so much time being saved and money being made because you can just "help out" a bit if nature doesn't provide what is asked. So is time, or in turn money, the important thing here?

Because if there are no strawberries growing naturally in Poland in the middle of December then that is how it's supposed to be.

🍓I don't think that some people realize, how dangerous it is to mess with natures natural rhythm and how having modified this rhythm to our own pleasure and supposed needs is already long out of our control, and only harms us rather than doing us any good, only because we think that using time as efficiently as possible and making loads of money along the way is the key to happiness.

🍓 🍓 🍓 🍓 🍓 🍓 🍓 🍓

🚲Now, imagine this scenario :

It's a beautiful summer day, with a few fluffly clouds in the sky and a smell of flowers and grass in the air. You want to go swimming at a nearby lake, you don't take the car to get their, you take your bike. There is so other way for you, when you think: lake, you think: bike. You enjoy it every time. It takes longer to get there.

🚲Maybe even double the time, but whenever you swing yourself on your bike, you feel fulfilled. You feel the fresh air on your face, you are taking yourself where you want to go with energy produced by your own body.

You take a deep breath, look up at the clouds and try to identify their shapes. You see a deer, a coffee mug, something that looks like an apron.

🚲On your way, your trying to remember the names of certain kinds of flowers you see on the side of the road or in peoples front yards. You look over and you see a field of strawberries. A few farmers and some local helpers are harvesting them, it's not a huge field but the strawberries are beautiful, red, fresh and juicy, you know because you have bought them from your local farmers market several times.

🚲Trees are lining the field and two young boys are sitting in their shade, eating some of the berries. As you ride by, they look up and wave. There is not a machine in sight and not a tang of fuel in the air.

You're having fun, you are feeling free and relaxed and time has no meaning, there is no hurry and no pressure, because what your are doing and living is meaningful, it is natural and rewarding and healthy.

The end

🍓Epilogue:

I want you to think about this as a story, how does it make you feel, what does it make you want to do?

I know that this is a little over the top storytelling for some people, but I just want to make clear what I mean by this. There are so many more rewarding things than being fast and 'efficient' and profitable. And these things mostly don't cost money and are so much more fulfilling and satisfying. They are what can release and take some of that pressure and anxiety that this highly driven society has created - the simple way of life so to say. Back to the roots and to what is really natural and truly important.