By Heather McCormack

Love it or hate it, self-help is gaining respectability, thanks in great part to Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd's enlightening The Time Paradox. This rigorously researched manual asks readers to examine their relationship with the clock so that they may achieve balance. As Zimbardo himself said, "Our idea is obvious and simple once you think about it." Read on for his takes on Eckhardt Tolle, the failure of communes, and the Obama campaign's genius.

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In my estimation, you wrote a self-help book, albeit a highly researched one. Was it strange for you to enter a field dominated by self-appointed “experts”?
The difference between our book and most other self-help books is that ours is based on three decades of research. I’m only concerned about The Time Paradox being categorized as a self-help book because it assumes a slightness and has led, I think, to the book not getting reviews in major newspapers and consumer magazines. Oprah’s manager called and said, “We’ve already done time,” referring to Eckhardt Tolle’s The Power of Now. The concept presented there is just a fantasy. You cannot live exclusively in the now. The now is a critical junction between the past and the future. It’s the kind of thing people want to hear, but as a message, it doesn’t lead to anything.

This raises the subject of time-management books and workshops—they’re all designed for future-oriented people, to get them to work more efficiently. What we’re saying is that people are working too hard. What they lack is balance. We want to help those future-oriented people reconnect with their past—because that’s where family and identity are—and experience some present hedonism, because it’s sensation-seeking, novelty-seeking, high energy, with a heavy focus on friends. Self-indulgence: this is what’s lacking in most future-oriented people.

Will you elaborate on the problem of people with clashing time perspectives? Can’t we all just get along, or should we pay more attention to others’ values about time?
The problem is, we all assume that everyone else sees the world the way we do. But that’s not the case. I gave a talk in Sicily; the problem with Sicilians is that they live in this present hedonistic world of great wine, great food. They have no sense of the future. Nobody plans. A man came up to me after my talk and said, “I’m a 50-year-old poet, and I realized that in Sicilian, there are no future-tense verbs! There is no will be! How could I have not known that until you said it?”

An ideal relationship, romantic or otherwise, has a certain blend. You cannot mix a person who is totally future-oriented with a person who is totally hedonistic. If you’re future oriented, you’re always going to be upset with people who are present-oriented because they’re always going to be late! That contrast is going to be too extreme. Somebody who is moderately hedonistic with some future orientation would be an ideal match for a future person because she or he is going to bring something to the table that the other person doesn’t have.

A case in point about time in the success of ventures: most communes in the 1970s failed because everyone in the commune was present hedonistic. Funny thing was, they used to pee upstream. Nobody planned where the toilets should be. Simple as that.

That begs the question, how do you stop people from engaging in destructive behaviors? Or coax them into doing something healthy?
A good example is the Just Say No program of the 1980s; it didn’t work because it was meant for future-oriented kids. But the reality is that most kids are present-oriented. Antidrug campaigns need to take into account the variety of time perspectives.

Another example: half of all people who start physical therapy never finish. Of course, when you start PT, it hurts. But you continue because you have envisioned a future of being well and mobile—at least that’s how future-oriented people would see it. If you’re present-oriented, however, you’re only going to think about the pain in the moment. We need special programs to cater to those people offering reminders and inspiration.

Do you think the time perspective of the Obama campaign contributed to its overwhelming success?
Absolutely. Essentially, his message was hope for change. That is, “We are future-oriented.” It was energizing the young generation toward the future. Young people glommed onto Obama exactly the same way they did with JFK, who said upfront, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

McCain was in the past, and Palin was as close as you can get to present hedonism. One of the things McCain said in the first debate was along the lines of, “My opponent and I both want to bring our soldiers home from Iraq. I differ in that I only want to bring them home after we’ve won the war.” That means, he’s just an old warrior who doesn’t understand that a war on terrorism can never be won because there’s no nation to surrender. It’s an asymmetrical conflict. All you can say is, “We’re increasing the level of security.”

If you remember, in the middle of the campaign, the McCain camp tried to take over the change theme. They said, “We’re for change, too!” That’s when they lost it.

The holidays are upon us. Do you have any advice for how people with past-negative perspectives can survive encounters with old friends and family?
Lots of people have had bad experiences, but almost nobody I’ve ever met has had all bad experiences. The question is, How do you make a heaven out of hell? The human mind can re-create and make positive anything. You need to look back and think of the good holidays, the good times, the times when people showed you love. Play that slideshow.

It’s really a matter of how much emphasis you put on the good vs. the bad. It’s also about what it is that you can now do to make others feel special. So you had a bad time? Find others who have had a bad time and do something to improve their outlook. Single them out, remember their name, their favorite food, their favorite song. Put in other people’s lives what you felt was missing in yours.