Chronos and Kairos: Enlist *Both* the Gods of Time
I first came across the Greek terms Chronos and Kairos in 2020.
In the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the futurist Jordan Hall described them as two ways of thinking about time.
Chronos is business as usual time. It is how we almost always think about time (at least, in countries like the UK). That it ticks past. One, two, three. That’s what we had mostly had for many years in the lead up to March 2020.
Kairos is a different kind of time: the kind that almost all of us can instantly recognise as soon as we talk about it. The kind of time that works differently to Chronos: where lots seems to change all at once; where time has a different feel to it. Hall’s implication was clear: the pandemic had created Kairos on an enormous scale.
His challenge to the viewers of his video was clear: Kairos presents an opportunity for people who are smart and brave and ready to take the opportunity when it comes.
All of us had our Chronos disrupted in the pandemic. But some people - and there were many - were smart and brave and ready.
Many businesses went under; some businesses exploded.
Many people struggled; some people took the opportunities of a lifetime.
This week I learned something more: Chronos and Kairos aren’t just Ancient Greek words; they were Ancient Greek Gods.
Chronos carried a sickle or a scythe: there’s an element of the Grim Reaper about him. There’s an association with death: once life begins, in the end, Chronos will come for it. Chronos can be thought of as The God of Time.
Kairos is different. He, we might think of, as The God of the Right Moment. There’s something of the Roman God Mercury about him: winged heels; the messenger arriving on queue; the trixter creating chaos by showing us something new in the moments we least expect.
It can be tempting to think of Chronos and Kairos as being in opposition: that’s one of the ways that many of us often find ourselves thinking; shifting things to black and white.
But once I stepped out of the ‘black and white’ trap, it looks to me more like a dance. Neither can exist without the other. Both are vital as we live our lives. The two of them playfully fighting it out everywhere we look.
The football match which requires the Chronos-like referee who still makes mistakes… perhaps at just the right moment. The so-called 90-minute game, always with a Kairos-inspired few minutes of stoppage time. Clear rules, set-ups, tactics but all requiring something to happen at just the right moment for a goal to be scored.
The habits we create: a writing habit, say, which happens very clearly for a Chronos-like 12 minutes once a week. And only by having it does - occasionally - a Kairos experience arrive, where someone who is smart and ready and brave captures the waves of themselves and the moment to write something extraordinary.
The structure of a coaching engagement: we will meet once a week for six months. Much will be business as ususal: how do I deal with this person? What do I do about that project? How do I negotiate that fee? And then it seems the whole plane of existence will turn because that client and her coach are smart and brave and ready to take the moment of Kairos and change the world and how she sees it forever. When one question or reflection meets a person’s thinking arrives like a wing-heeled messenger at just the right moment: a gift from Kairos.
Much of our society looks like a temple to Chronos. We have, in the last few hundred years, found him and taken his blessings to create true wonders.
And almost all of the things that bring us most alive are gifts from Kairos: things that are so precious because they come (or once came) at just the right moment.
But the truth is, for life, we need both: we need the pure Kairos of inspiration. But if that inspiration never permeates into Chronos, then the world never changes.
Let’s invite them both to play.
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PS If you want 2025 to connect you more deeply to your inner sense of integrity and honour, then you might be interested in my latest long-read article. It’s about Mohamed Al-Fayed, Enron and Omar Little from The Wire. It’s called A Man Got to Have a Code: https://www.robbieswale.com/writing/2024/10/11/a-man-got-to-have-a-code-leading-with-honour-iii
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.