Beginning or Ending: Count Paradigm vs. Countdown Paradigm?

A month ago on the beginning of Ramadan, I posted the following on Facebook "Beginning and end are 2 sides of the same coin. The beginning of anything means the beginning of its end or the beginning of the countdown towards the end. I guess if we looked at it that way we would know that the month has started to end yesterday".

Few months before that I had a discussion with some colleagues about what I can call the countdown paradigm; about looking at time and processes always as countdown towards the end. So it simply means that if you joint a job today then your days in the job have started to decrease and the remaining days are less until you reach your last day on this job even if it's after 10 years from today.

Few days ago, it was my last day with an employer to join another employer.

I'm currently going through many beginnings and ends, and I guess we all do that everyday on a level or another but sometimes we don't pay that much of attention.

My question for you is, how do you normally look at it? How would you like to look at it? When you join the new job, are you beginning? Or are you ending? Is the beginning the beginning of the end? Or is the end the end of the beginning? 

I guess we would all say that there's a beginning and there's an end and there's a timeline in between. I guess we may sometimes disagree on where the beginning ends so that timeline would begin or where that timeline ends so the end would begin.

In many cases, you all of a sudden hit the unexpected end and then you can't really clearly define those three entities; beginning, timeline and end.

I normally adopt the count paradigm and not the countdown paradigm, especially for those things with unknown or undefined end dates. I normally say I've been in this position for 3 years and I don't think of it as I have 1 year left.

There're very clear things where we adopt the countdown paradigm like in contracts, studies .. etc. And I don't get surprised when I see people adopting the count paradigm in those cases as well.

As we're very familiar with the count paradigm I would like to elaborate a bit on the countdown paradigm and see how good or bad, convenient or inconvenient it could be.

• Countdown paradigm is very-result oriented, it looks at the time as a resource against the set of objectives, with the bell ringing for the beginning you'll know that the resource is decreasing and you'll be more mindful on what you've to get done for yourself and others.
• Countdown paradigm is very much focused on what's next, it's not focused on the end only as it clearly proposes the new beginning after the end, so it always helps you be ready.
• You're heading towards the end and towards the new beginning at the same time, and both do have requirements that you have to work on now.
• Countdown paradigm is not pessimistic, it's very optimistic, it's about nice glorious ends and challenging beginnings, it's about advances and new frontiers.
• Countdown paradigm is not stressful, it's a real stress-relief agent, It helps you arrive at destinations prepared and makes you ready for surprises and unexpected ends.
• Countdown gives you a good criteria to decide on things, investments, decisions based on their contribution to the end and their value at the destination or the at the next beginning.
• If you took the macro countdown paradigm into account, you'll wonder about your end in this life and your objectives towards yourself and others and you'll be focused on the next beginning depending on what you believe in. In the end it'll always help you be better in managing your presence in this world.

What do you think?

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