Palm Beach Gardens Living - August 2025

COMMUNITY The riddle goes like this. Q: “What’s always coming but never arrives?” A: “Tomorrow.” There's always another tomorrow. And then tomorrow. The riddle puts right in front of us what we fail to see in our daily lives. A riddle takes our expectations and misdirects them. And a riddle about time is as fun as a mind-twister. Twisting, disruptive, costly Covid regulations though, ushered in an unintended consequence. Millions of people changed their minds. Literally. According to Gallup, 60% of U.S. workers described themselves as thriving in 2019. By 2024, that number dropped to 50%. Stress and daily negative emotions have held record highs since COVID-19 turned the world upside down. Something broke, and we haven’t fully put it back together. But here’s the twist: Not everyone broke. Some people didn’t just survive the disruption; they grew. Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte coined a term for this phenomenon: Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG). Their research shows that 30% to 70% of people who go through crisis report genuine growth, not in spite of the trauma, but because they found meaning through it. The key isn’t just coping, it’s thinking differently. Making a critical choice. Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells Rosencrantz: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” He saw it. The rub is thinking . So what thinking made the difference? Let’s talk about time . People who continue to suffer from post-COVID exhaustion often fixate on what should have happened by now. Promotions. Plans. Progress. This fixation has a name in ancient Greek: That is, chronos—clock time. It’s linear, scheduled, and rigid. But before Peter Henlein’s invention in 1505, time wasn’t popularly clock-based. It was measured in moments—sunrise, meals, and stories shared. That was kairos time: qualitative, not quantitative. Time not as units, but as meaning. Chronos time gradually absorbed most policies, plans, and lives. Covid disrupted chronos. It erased our routines. And for some, that meant panic. But for others, it opened a door back to rethinking time. Strategic coach Dan Sullivan champions this mindset. In “10x is Easier Than 2x,” he teaches that repeatable 10X success doesn’t come from cramming more into the day, but by recognizing and acting within those rich, focused moments where clarity lives. Kairos. Sullivan argues that by identifying the 20% of our activity that brings 80% of our results, we can stop sprinting through life and start leaping forward. The 80%? Just say no. When we stop measuring time only by clocks and start measuring it by clarity, deep growth begins. Tomorrow in clarity is permission to live now, fully, with meaning rather than by ratcheted tasks with no true value. The lesson of our times isn’t simply about loss. Or disruption. It’s about rediscovery. About how we think. About what matters. About how to live in time, not just pass through it. Clarity inside our thinking will reintroduce us to our own individual lives. Tomorrows become something we actually look forward to. What are your thoughts? Have a question? I respond to every email. therobertbailey@gmail.com The Clarity Connection: - Submitted by Robert Bailey - WHY “TOMORROW” NEVER ARRIVES— ANDWHY THAT’S A GOOD THING 6 PA L M B E A C H G A R D E N S L I V I N G | A U G U S T 2 0 2 5