Lets do some math:
40% of the US labor force works 50 hours or more a week. American men average 49.4 hours a week on the job. As I’ve stated before, the United States works more than any other industrialized country in the world: on average 9 weeks longer per year than Western Europe. We passed Japan in the mid-1990s. The Japanese work so much they have a word for death by overwork: Karoshi.
And yet we proudly work more than they do. I often hear it when I ask people how they are: “Busy,'” they say. As if “busy” has replaced “good” or “fine” as a positive mental state.
People are happy with themselves when they have to check their calender for availability…..and find a spot a week or more out. Our friends are no longer the people we spend the most time with, but the ones who most understand why we don’t have the time to spend.
So here comes the math part:
50 hours a week is 10 hours a day.
The average work commute is 72 minutes a day.
Let’s say eating takes up 1.5 hours. I think that is a fair estimate.
We are now at 12.75 hours in a day.
Lets sleep for 8 hours (wishful thinking).
We are now at 20.75 hours in a day….lets round it off to 21 hours.
You now have 3 hours to brush your teeth, take a shower, shave, pay bills, make phone calls, read a book, plan a vacation, mow the lawn, iron your clothes, shop for a present, fix the grill, walk the dog, read the mail, shop for new insurance, do your taxes, watch some TV, and take a shit. The fact is those 3 hours are easily eaten up just maintaining your life.
And now you are out of time. 24 hours is gone.
You still haven’t relaxed, spoken to your children at all, or spent a second with your wife. Nor have you volunteered in the community, spent time with any of your friends or extended family, gone to church, or gotten a minute of exercise.
I am a bit of an environmentalist. I like it when the tree-huggers point out that you can’t just keep taking from the Earth. The Earth is a limited resource. It will run out if we don’t allow it to replenish. It is common knowledge and, while we don’t act in accordance, at least we acknowledge the fact.
Time is also a limited resource. There are only 24 hours in a day. To me it is common sense, but somehow it is not common knowledge.
Work+Transit+Food+Sleep+Life Maintenance = about 24 hours. And you haven’t spent a minute with your kids, wife, family, friends, or, perhaps most importantly, with yourself. You haven’t gotten one lick of exercise or wasted the first minute daydreaming.
The only one of the necessary inputs that can be changed appreciably is sleep hours, but lack of sleep damages the very aims you are trying to accomplish by getting less of it. We are not robots.
All this while cell phones and email and the myriad of other productivity enhancing devices are said to save us time. Don’t do me any favors!! If they save me any more time I’ll be sleeping 3 hours a night and end up in therapy.
Where is all this time supposed to come from?
The Environmentalists have a whole movement behind them, trying to Save the Earth and the Whales and the Rainforest. It is a noble goal. Recycle, buy Organic stuff, give to Greenpeace….whatever floats your boat.
Where is the Save the People movement? The one where we acknowledge 25% of Americans took no vacation at all last year, that dual income families spend 12 minutes a day talking to each other, and that more work hours in industrial countries is directly related to increased rates of murder, rape, suidice, divorce, pollution and mental illness?
Not only is there no movement to take back our lives, but we seem at least superficially happy with being overscheduled.
“How’s it been going?”
“Aww….you know, just staying busy.”
I totally agree with the sucking that is going on in this respect. You know what? Its my major driving force. What I plan to do is, (when I finish school) work to pay off student loans for a few years, get a piece of land, a fat chunk, and do it all myself. Start a 1-person shangra-la.
My husband is NOT interested in pursuing this sort of lifestyle. He says “oh North-American society is just like a game. And I’m going to win. I’m going to be rich and free and you will be sorry that you didn’t do it too.” I laugh a bit cause everyone thinks that. Really. They all think that they are going to get ahead by working hard. Thats how the game keeps running. People think that if they just put in another 70 hours a week, that their boss will see that they deserve the raise or whatever.
I say.. no. What a waste of life! You never know when you are going to die, or whatever else! I feel a certain sense of urgency that I enjoy my life, call me crazy but I refuse to play ‘the game’. Ill live on a minimal budget, on my own place, grow my own food as much as possible, make my own clothes, and write books about how my life is great.
heh
Even if I had to work 70 hours a week on a farm, raising animals.. I would at least enjoy all the hours, seconds, and minutes doing so, because it was for me. And somehow seems more natural.
I might have to work a day or two a week doing something, I will have a degree in humanities so Im sure I can find something that would work, I don’t need much money anyhow.
I wonder how many other people are thinking of ‘opting out’ like I am?
Society has a ‘monopoly on lifestyle’ in a sense, doesn’t it?
D.
I think about “opting out” everday. A lot of people do.
You just never hear from them. There is no formal movement organizing their voices so we are largely unaware of how numerous they are.
One day they’re just gone and you hear about them working at a dive shop in the Maldives or running jungle tours in Vietnam. You meet a lot of them traveling.
The rest of them “opt out” here in the US. They number among the chronically underemployed who’ve decided to work to just enough to live, grossly under-using their talents.
There is nothing wrong with working to live, but I do see something fundamentally wrong with not having the option to fully develop your talent in the professional world. You should always have the choice to share your best and get rewarded for it. These people lack the proper outlet….and so they “opt out”.