Torschlusspanik: The fear that time is running out

Hold the door!

TORSCHLUSSPANIK [German]

In almost a month, I will be forty. Forty! 

In some ways, I’ve accomplished more than I thought I would have accomplished by this age. I started a life in a new city.  I became a writer. I wrote a book. On the other hand, there are goals and milestones I thought I would have reached by now but still haven’t. I’d like to write a more creative book. I thought I’d have more money saved. I’ve never been to France or Spain. If you think about your own life, you probably feel similarly. (Or maybe you’ve already accomplished everything you’ve already set out to do, in which case, good for you.)

My point is: Why is it so much easier to focus on what you haven’t done instead of what you’ve already accomplished? Such is the nature of pursuing goals, I guess. But when you think about the time you have left to accomplish all of those unfinished goals, it’s anxiety-inducing. You become hyper-aware that time is running out and your window of opportunity is closing.

In German, this feeling is known as torschlusspanik. Literally, it means "gate-shut-panic." Metaphorically, it describes “the anxiety induced by the feeling that time is running out,” as one source explains it, “...and particularly refers to people as they age, who worry that they have to take the opportunity now, in case they never get the chance again.” 

The term reportedly originated in the Middle Ages, when people would rush back to the city to get inside the gates before night fell and they were left out in the cold. That may just be folklore, but it’s an apt metaphor for what aging feels like.

As someone who enjoys setting goals, I feel torschlusspanik quite often. There are some markers of time that make torschlusspanik hard to ignore  — I can’t help but recall my own experience trying to get pregnant, and all the confusion and anxiety that came with it. But when it comes to most pursuits, I’ve come to believe that torschlusspanik is counterproductive. It might motivate you to start working on those goals, but panic isn’t an ideal motivator. You tend to do things messy when you’re panicked. Then, when you actually reach the goals you’ve rushed to accomplish, you don’t feel accomplished at all. You just feel relieved that you don’t have to panic anymore. 

I’m not in the business of giving life advice, but there’s a quote that’s helped me cope with my own feelings of torschlusspanik:

“What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make enough plans.” -David Whyte

In other words, acceptance. Which is much easier said than done, and which, ironically, might take time. I have to constantly remind myself that the best way to control time is to give up the idea that I have any control over it in the first place. But letting go of the panic is both liberating and hopeful: Liberating because you’re not rushing to beat the door; hopeful because of all the possibilities that come with slowing down.

Do you ever feel torschlusspanik? If so, how do you deal with it?

What’s new?

• Speaking of time, artist Jenny Odell has a new book coming out, Saving Time. I loved her first book, How to Do Nothing. In this New York Times profile, Odell says: “I want to think about time in a shared way. What becomes possible collectively when you remove the grid, and stop thinking about it as little bits of time currency in each individual person’s time bank, and that all you can do is hoard it.”

• I read this interview with Paul Simon.  The way Simon describes his creative process sounds a bit like the Duende: “I’m not interested in writing something that I thought about; I’m interested in discovering where my mind wants to go or what object it wants to pick up.”
  

• I worked on this Hidden Brain episode about how our beliefs about the world shape our experiences within it.

 — Kristin