Gravity – John Mayer

Two Greek words both defining  Time  however, clearly from a contradicting perspective.

Kairos referring  Quality of Time whereas Chronos to the Quantity of Time. As Jermy Arnold quotes best, ” Chronos was just a way of describing time in a chronological sense”. Meaning, Chronos is sequential time, i.e. It’s about the order of the world. The Sun rises then sets. The moon moves through the sky in a predictable path. They define our days and months. This is to say that the wrinkles etched on your face is chronos. On contrary, Kairos is about the subjective experience of living within time. They are the moments you spend with your loved ones, the moments of beautiful elation, of sheer happiness and fulfillment and joy and satisfaction.”

Simply put, the two have a fundamental difference of minutes and moments.

That, we experience chronos when we are impatiently waiting for something to be over and done with. Whereas, we’d experience kairos when we are so deeply engrossed in an activity that time seems to stand still. That, in kairos we feel in control of our time, whereas in chronos, it’s quite the opposite, we feel mostly fucked! Stressed per se.

Now let’s see:

Imagine you are walking on a street, earphones are plugged in playing your favorite song. There are people walking around you. Vehicles moving around you. A normal day for you nothing special about it, you won’t even have to be in the moment, the motor skills of your body takes care of everything. But then you saw a lady fell down on the road, and all of a sudden you are in the moment; You plug-out your earphones, run to the lady and help her get up, ask if she is fine. You offer her some water, make her rest, check for the bruises and calm her down. After assuring she’d be fine, you then leave plugging your earphones back and continue the walk but this time you have a wide smile on your face, since you help an unknown person without expecting anything in return.

[pullquote]at first the time was just flowing for you like Chronos but after seeing the lady fell on the ground, the time becomes a moment like Kairos.[/pullquote]

That is the difference between chronos and kairos — at first the time was just flowing for you like Chronos but after seeing the lady fell on the ground, the time becomes a moment like Kairos.

Sure thing, in the times where kids have grown and gone, where, we are continuously muddling along in a career’s slippery road, making a living, and just existing out of habit more than anything, and well sadly, knowingly or unknowingly, waiting to die some–day; the actualization of realization to living a kairos fueled life in this chronos world has become of a grave importance.

And, because, the problem for all of us is that the clock keeps ticking the wrong way and we are losing moments to the past, out of our reach, never to be regained.

This informative piece is a subtle reminder to you my dear friends, kairos or chronos?