What We Really Mean When We Say ‘I Don’t Have Time’
How priorities, not hours, shape the life you’re actually living—and what it takes to reclaim the steering wheel before autopilot drives you somewhere you never meant to go.
The Lie of “Not Enough Time”
We’ve all heard it. We’ve all said it.
“I wish I could, but I just don’t have the time.”
“Remember when we used to…?”
“Why don’t we do that anymore?”
The truth is, time hasn’t vanished. The clocks didn’t speed up. The Earth didn’t suddenly spin faster on its axis (and if it did, we’d all be a lot more nauseous). What we really mean when we say we “don’t have time” is something far more honest: it’s not a priority.
That’s not necessarily an indictment—it’s just reality. Life changes. Priorities shift. And they should. Some of what we did in the past was valuable only in its moment. We don’t go chasing high school parties or try to relive our first road trip, because while the memories shine brightly, the magic of those experiences lived in their once-only-ness. And often, the truth is blurrier than we remember anyway. Memory is less a photograph than it is a story told through a funhouse mirror—nostalgic, comforting, occasionally distorted.
This is hard for many people to accept. Humans crave certainty. It’s one of the six basic psychological needs according to Tony Robbins, but right alongside it is uncertainty—the thrill of what’s next, the surprise of the unknown. That tension between what’s familiar and what’s possible is where real living begins. To pretend we simply ran out of time is to dodge the real question: Did we stop choosing what matters to us?
When the Game Plays You
Each year someone asks, “What are you looking forward to?” and I’ve made a habit of responding, “I don’t know, because it hasn’t happened yet.” It’s not just being cheeky. It’s a worldview.
Some of the most incredible moments of my life—the ones I will be grateful for until my final breath—were unplanned. They didn’t arrive through strategy, vision boards, or ten-year plans. They happened because I was on the court, not watching from the bleachers. I showed up. I stayed curious. I let the unpredictable nature of life have its way with me—and I participated fully.
But here’s the danger: when you stop showing up with that openness, when you numb yourself with routine, the day-to-day starts making your choices for you. You start mistaking motion for meaning. You RSVP to the birthday, go to the work dinner, show up at the event, because… well, because that’s what you do. But if you can’t recall a single thing about the last five of those outings, or if nothing has stirred your soul the way memories from years ago still do, maybe something is off. Maybe your life has quietly slipped into autopilot.
That’s not a tragedy—unless you let it go on forever. For some, running the programmed route is comfort. Predictable. Safe. But if you’re still reading this, I’d bet that’s not enough for you. You’re wondering what it would mean to reawaken. To stop drifting and start steering again. And that brings us to a subtle but vital distinction.
The Myth of the 10x Life
Modern life moves fast. Faster than ever. But overwhelm isn’t always caused by volume. It’s often caused by misplaced importance.
We’ve heard about the “10x engineer”—that mythical creature who writes code faster and better than ten others combined. But the truth is, there are “10x humans,” too. And their secret isn’t working faster; it’s choosing smarter.
These are the people who make it look easy. When you ask them to take on a new challenge, they say “sure” without flinching. Why? Not because they have more hours in the day. Not because they have a secret productivity app. But because they’ve quietly stopped doing the nine other things that were stealing their focus. They’ve edited their lives with precision. They’ve figured out what matters. Everything else? Noise.
To live like that doesn’t require superpowers. It requires courage—the courage to say no to things that feel important but aren’t, the insight to recognize what moves the needle, and the discipline to keep your hands on the wheel instead of letting the ride steer itself.
In the end, the question isn’t how much time you have. It’s how clearly you see what matters. And how brave you’re willing to be in honoring it.
Because life doesn’t ask for your schedule. It asks for your attention. So the next time you catch yourself saying, “Remember when we used to…?” or wondering, “Why don’t we do that anymore?”—pause for a moment. That question might not be nostalgia knocking. It might just be the universe whispering that what you’re doing today isn’t nearly as important as you think it is. Instead of chasing echoes of a past that can never quite be recreated, try this: make your present so vivid, so intentional, so fully lived, that the future you’re shaping becomes even more memorable than the past you’re longing for.
