Time’s scarcity promotes emotional savoring
By Jaime Kurtz
James Madison University. September 16, 2022.
The New York Times best-selling memoir Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, (2021) by Suleika Jaouad.
In 2021, 33 year-old Suleika Jaouad, author of The New York Times best-selling memoir Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, was diagnosed with leukemia for a second time. In a social media post, she shared,
“This time, the experience is so different. I don’t yearn for accomplishments, professional or otherwise. I don’t think, ‘Oh, but I just want to write another book, meet more people, see more things.’ What I want is time. I want to look back on this year and remember all of the shapeless days, where I wasn’t looking at my phone, wasn’t working, where I was truly present with my friends and family. The hours I spent painting these strange, sort of dark but mostly joy- and love-filled paintings. The time spent in my garden, which was planted with hundreds of bulbs last winter and will burst into bloom in the spring. Whatever it is I leave behind, I want it to reflect a respect for time.”
Jaouad’s bittersweet reflections are borne out of a first-hand reckoning with time’s scarcity. Of course, we all face an uncertain future, but seldom is it so front-and-center in our lives. For Jaouad, though, life’s frailty is ever-present as she battles a serious illness. For all of the fears that surely accompany it, her sense of time’s scarcity has one clear upside: it makes this time extremely precious, not something to squander.
Interestingly, the ways Jaouad said she wanted to spend her time is described perfectly by socioemotional selectivity theory, Laura Carstensen’s well-established theory of lifespan emotional development. In short, the theory argues that as people begin to see their time horizons shrinking, most often due to old age or serious illness, they tend to shift their goals from prioritizing novelty and achievement (“I don’t yearn for accomplishments,” Jaouad says) to more emotionally-rewarding things (“all of the shapeless days, where I wasn’t looking at my phone, wasn’t working, where I was truly present with my friends and family”). There is also a shift from pursuits that might have a payoff down the line—investing in new knowledge and relationships—to the sorts of things that are rewarding in the moment, including favorite people, places, and hobbies. In that way, what can look to an outsider like a slowing down or even a lack of motivation is actually a very pragmatic way to use one’s remaining time well.
Savor the moments… especially if they’re in limited supply!
The acknowledgement of time’s scarcity also seems to promote emotional savoring, a type of emotion regulation that entails noticing and appreciating the positive in any given moment. Yet, as simple as it sounds, savoring is not always easy. For one, it requires focused attention, and our attention is so often divided. Savoring ordinary life can also be a challenge simply because we experience a lot of the same things over and over, and it can be a challenge to notice and appreciate these constancies, pleasant as they might be.
If time’s scarcity—with its “now or never” motivation—helps encourage savoring, one might wonder if a brush with mortality is necessary to harness this perspective. Fortunately, as some of my own research has shown, a person doesn’t need to be keenly aware of the end of life itself in order to savor. Just thinking about the ending of phases of life can trigger a mindset of savoring.
Data patterns from Kurtz, 2008, finding that perceived time scarcity led participants to more strongly savor their last few weeks at college.
In a 2008 study (Kurtz, 2008), I recruited a sample of college seniors about six weeks prior to their college graduation. All of these students reported liking college a great deal and had very mixed feelings about graduating. I asked some of them to write about their feelings about college, given that there was only “a very short time left” until graduation. Others were asked to write about their feelings about college, given that there was actually “a good amount of time left” until graduation (with six weeks to go, both mindsets were feasible). At the end of two weeks, those writing about graduation being near reported more appreciation for college life, more motivation to make the most of their remaining time, and even an increase in happiness, compared to those who were thinking about graduation being far off.
This finding may seem somewhat counterintuitive, because as at least anecdotally people seem to prefer to avoid thinking about the ending of a cherished life experience. From the perspective of socioemotional selectivity theory, however, an increased awareness of a scarcity of time would actually encourage savoring, motivating people to want to make the most of their last precious days.
We were also curious to know whether a person could adopt a mindset of time scarcity even when, in reality, time was abundant. In one study with data collected over six weeks (Layous, Kurtz, Lyubomirsky, & Chancellor, 2018), my colleagues and I instructed a group of college freshmen and sophomores to simply imagine moving away from their college town in thirty days, to see if this could change the way they thought about and used their time. We asked them to think about the sorts of things they would want to do if they had only thirty days left in town. We had them check-in with us weekly, and in one of these check-ins, one student reported,
“During this week I enjoyed the beautiful campus I live on by doing many different things. I walked around campus to classes instead of taking the bus. I sat on the Quad and enjoyed the scenery. I also visited Skyline Drive off-campus with my boyfriend to stargaze. We went to dinner off-campus in downtown Harrisonburg. I went shopping and spent time with my roommate watching movies and eating Taco Bell…focusing on others gives me a sense of purpose…I did well on my health exam after studying very hard which was a great accomplishment. I was productive but didn’t spend too much time doing work without spending time with friends.”
Compared to a neutral control group (who kept track of their daily activities), those living the month like it was their last showed a significant increase in happiness. Interestingly, this effect was driven by fulfillment of three core psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and interpersonal relatedness. Perhaps these students felt like more active agents in their daily decision-making, as time’s scarcity helped to clarify their priorities. As the student above demonstrated, she saw that studying was important, but her emotionally rewarding relationships wouldn’t be sacrificed in order to do well academically. This study suggests that just imagining time running out – essentially, living each day as if it were the last – may be an effective way to capitalize on the scarcity-savoring connection even when time is abundant.
Data patterns from Studies 2, 3, and 4 of Garcia-Rada & Kim (2021), showing that perceived time scarcity motivated couples to want to savor their limited time together by doing more extraordinary dates and experiences together.
There are also interpersonal consequences to embracing time’s scarcity. In one recent study, researchers Ximena Garcia-Rada and Tami Kim (2021) found that when romantic couples perceived their time together as being scarce, either due to long-distance or excessive busyness, people preferred to spend this time doing more extraordinary experiences, such as going to live theatre performances, eating high-end chocolates, or going to a fancy restaurant, rather than doing more everyday kinds of activities such as watching a movie at home with take-out food. They seemed to believe that these kinds of extraordinary experiences would help them to better savor their limited time with their relationship partner. In other words: their time together might be limited, but it’s going to be special! Future research is needed to determine whether this strategy is actually effective at enhancing relationship quality, but this idea is certainly in keeping with what we know about the relationship between time’s scarcity and the motivation to savor the moment.
Time’s abundance undermines emotional savoring
There is also evidence that time’s abundance is a natural enemy of savoring. In a clever study, Suzanne B. Shu and Ayelet Gneezy (2010) recruited participants from among residents and visitors in several big cities, such as Chicago and London, and simply asked them to note which of the city’s major landmarks and attractions they had visited (e.g., the Field Museum, the Art Institute, and the Sears/Willis Tower in Chicago; Big Ben, Kensington Palace, and the Tower Bridge in London). The data patterns showed that the visitors were more likely to have toured the major landmarks and attractions than the residents, even though the residents lived near them! This pattern is easily explained by socioemotional selectivity theory: When you’re just visiting a city, you know you only have a limited time to enjoy the experience of being in that city, so you become motivated to savor all the city has to offer. But when you live there, as a resident, it may feel like you’ve got all the time in the world… so you can do other things instead, and maybe you’ll go savor the experiences of the city some other time.
Landmarks in Chicago USA and London UK.
Indeed, additional data showed the difference between residents and visitors experiences in each city was not because the residents were simply less interested in seeing major attractions than were the visitors. The residents reported visiting many popular landmarks and attractions when they themselves visited other cities… just not the landmarks and attractions in their own city, where they lived full-time. That is, the disinterest in savoring the moment in their own cities is related to the abundance of time: when people resided in a city and thus had abundant time to access to its experiences, residents might just have told themselves, “I’ll go savor that experience later.” Instead, they actually savored it never.
Savoring the time you have…
While embracing time’s scarcity is certainly not the only avenue to greater savoring, it is worth considering because it is readily available to all, thanks to the inevitable passage of time that we all grapple with. Also, due to its counterintuitive nature (“thinking about a sad thing like limited time to experience things can make me…happier?”), its effectiveness may well be underappreciated. Therefore, the next time you find yourself struggling to appreciate the good things around you, take a moment and imagine what life might be like without them. Consider what it might feel like to soon say a permanent goodbye to a person, a place, or an experience that you tend to take for granted. You might even write about what life might be like without it. Don’t be surprised if this simple exercise leads you to a greater sense of appreciation, gratitude, and maybe even more happiness.
Dr. Jaime Kurtz is Professor of Psychology at James Madison University, where she regularly teaches courses on Social Psychology, Psychology of Personality, Psychology of Well-Being, Positive Psychology, and Psychological Research Methods. Jaime has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on happiness and, with bestselling author Sonja Lyubomirsky, she is co-author of Positively Happy: Routes to Sustainable Happiness, a workbook for putting happiness strategies into practice in everyday life. Her book, The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations. She recently worked with Audible and The Great Courses to create two audio programs: The Psychology of Happiness and Personality Tests and What They Can Tell Us. With the Institute for Brain Potential, Dr. Kurtz offers multiple seminars on happiness and well-being each year to health-care professionals nationwide. In addition, she writes the popular “Happy Trails” online column for Psychology Today.