When I spent a semester living in Ghana during my junior year in college, I enjoyed studying the differences between American culture and Ghanaian culture, and contemplating the significance of these differences. I discovered that certain behaviors I assumed were common knowledge and common courtesy were in fact not common at all. For instance, whenever someone wanted to get my attention they would hiss and snap at me, similar to how I may call my dog. Initially I found this behavior offensive, but before I could become too indignant, I had to make sure that what I felt was innocuous behavior wasn’t in fact offensive to my host country as well. In Ghana, for example, using your left hand to engage people is considered offensive. I had a classmate of mine get into a heated argument with a taxi driver because she used her left hand to pay him. What became overwhelmingly apparent to me when living abroad is that culture has far more influence over human behavior and the creation of norms than any apparent universally innate human trait. In other words, we may all want to be loved and respected, but what that looks like varies from culture to culture. What may be liberating for some cultures is oppressive to others.
This is very much the case when it comes to time. In American cultures time is seen as something we own and can control. We do not like wasting it because we believe, as the adage goes, that time is money. To waste my time is to waste my ability to be productive and make money. And one should never mess with our money (just as Rihanna). Time management is a skill we praise and seek to cultivate in all our citizens. For those who lack effective time management, they feel the consequences of their ineptitude. We become annoyed when someone wastes our time, because they should know better; it is common courtesy to be considerate of one’s time.
Ironically, despite our cultural belief that we can control our time, the truth is that we cannot; we only hold the illusion that we can. Time is constant and cannot be manipulated by people. I recall my science teacher in high school stating how time should always be represented on the “x” axis, or the independent variable axis because, “time is not a dependent variable. We can’t control time; it is constant.” But if we know that time is an independent variable, then why does our culture insist that we wield more power over it than we do? More importantly, why do we enslave ourselves to the dictates of time? Think about it, when was the last time you went a whole day without checking the time? I think most of us would go crazy if we could not look at a clock for more than a few hours. Is this simply because we’re being considerate or professional, or is something else at play here?
In Ghana, they were not as enslaved to time as we are in America. Initially I found this very aggravating. I did not know how to plan my day because people appeared to be handling affairs willy-nilly. For example, when I wanted to take a tro tro (a form of public transportation), there was no schedule to base my travel on. Instead I would have to go to the tro tro station and wait for my particular tro tro to fill up to capacity. This could take a few minutes, or it could take hours (thankfully it never took long). So I was forced to wait until the driver felt he had enough revenue from passengers to leave the station. Such an approach offended my American sensibilities, especially the indefinite waiting. I realize now that what bothered me the most was the not knowing how long this trip would take and feeling out of control. If there were a schedule, then it would diminish some of the unknown. In a sense, I was trying to take time off of the “x” axis. I also suspect that is what we are trying to do in our culture at large with our obsession with time; trying to control the unknown.
But for the Ghanaians waiting with me, they did not have this same anxiety or sense of waste. They were relaxed and waited patiently until the tro tro was filled. Their cultural expectations freed them from the enslavement of time and any accompanying illusions about controlling it. What I perceived as a willy-nilly attitude was in fact their recognition of the constancy and independence of time. Even though it has been 10 years since I lived there, I often wonder what it would be like if I adopted the Ghanaian view to time. What would it be like to be able to wait patiently for an unknown period of time; assured that even though I may not know when I’ll get to my final destination, I know that I will get there. Now that is liberating! And I believe that is a far more valuable life skill than effective time management.
–Until Next Time–
Palooke
