My last job gave me vast tracts of seasonal free time — as recompense for 3 active seasons of almost no free time. I can attest that there is such a thing as too much and too little free time. But we are very adaptable. I wove together a workable tapistry of enduring the hectic times upon the promise of the slack times, and enjoying the slack times in full awareness that I would soon be too busy to turn around. I went from being a vital part of a bustling mini-city of several hundred with absolutely no privacy . . . to being the only person for more than a mile around.
This new job is challenging. I’m incredibly busy most of the time — but find enough snippets of down time to hang out in a Nebraska Denny’s enjoying the wifi, taking an hour to walk a California trail, explore an Alabama bayou, watch a Florida storm, cook in the Arizona heat, connect with friends all over the continent, listen to an interesting book, post here, partake of an online psychology course . . .
But I’m no spring chicken. Sooner or later my health is going to fail sufficiently to bring me back off the road. Here’s hoping it’s at least a decade out!
@Scarlett
I needed a better understanding of all the victimhood power groups and social justice warriors invading our society as a relatively recent phenomenon.
It’s too easy to hate that which we don’t understand.
But then something else happened, and I started really enjoying what I was learning and seeing how it applied to so many other things in life!
Working for myself gives me all the free time I choose to accept. However, working for myself means if I don’t work I won’t eat. I think I am OK with finding the balance. I can be satisfied with a burger, over filet mignon any day.
I spend my “free” time thinking and appreciating and at times whining about the state of things. I love to read. I love to hike and I love to be with people I really like. That number is pretty few and includes my wife, my kids, my grandson, my dog and a very small handful of people that I can accept as genuine. That seems to be a rarity in my world.
Yes, there is too much and too little. It is our responsibility to find the right balance.
@spitfire3dc now that I work from home, I don’t find more free time, but I find free time where I want it instead of always having to fit it in at the beginning and end of a day, because my company says it doesn’t really matter when I do the work, as long as I get it done. I find myself working a lot early in the morning before the world is awake. these sound like lovely ways to spend free time. I also enjoy hiking, and I have my people. I like people I can have long conversations with, and I have found that now that my children are nearly grown (19 and 20), I can do exactly that with them. I mustve rubbed off on them a little.
The concept of “free time” is highly subjective.
Perhaps the term “leisure time” would be more appropriate in your scenario.
TIME is a construct of the mind. It has been speculated that time can be infinite, it can be traveled in, or is part of space/time in astrophysics. Time is only limited by what one does with it. Before the invention of mechanical clocks that divided the day into measured segments of activity, the concept of time had relatively little meaning to man. What one accomplished between sun rise and sun set was all that mattered to man. As man advanced with technologies that improved his situation in life; such as the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire and it’s uses, man began to accomplish more tasks between sun up and sun down. The wheel enabled man to travel farther in a day, and fire gave a man light to labor by at night. The measuring of time was still rather insignificant to man, as he was busy just trying to survive in his early world.
Now step forward a few thousand years. Man invents the mechanical clock to regulate the hours in a day (and night) and man has become a slave to his own technology. Man busies himself still to survive, but now his days, hours, minutes, and seconds must be accounted for by his silly mechanical device…the clock. Man has no free time. Free time does not exist. Leisure time however does exist. A man chooses to use time to his advantage by not laboring tirelessly from sun up to sun down. Personal choice allows a man to relax between his labors. Therefor leisure time is the more appropriate term…
12 responses to “Free time”
It depends what you call free time
@Jear77 outside of working, and performing household chores
@Scarlett sleeping, eating, writing/ publishing articles takes up the majority of my time.
I’m retired, so all of my time is free time. I enjoy life and tend my garden and greenhouse. I check out facebook and spend too much time on it.
Immortal…need I explain?
My last job gave me vast tracts of seasonal free time — as recompense for 3 active seasons of almost no free time. I can attest that there is such a thing as too much and too little free time. But we are very adaptable. I wove together a workable tapistry of enduring the hectic times upon the promise of the slack times, and enjoying the slack times in full awareness that I would soon be too busy to turn around. I went from being a vital part of a bustling mini-city of several hundred with absolutely no privacy . . . to being the only person for more than a mile around.
This new job is challenging. I’m incredibly busy most of the time — but find enough snippets of down time to hang out in a Nebraska Denny’s enjoying the wifi, taking an hour to walk a California trail, explore an Alabama bayou, watch a Florida storm, cook in the Arizona heat, connect with friends all over the continent, listen to an interesting book, post here, partake of an online psychology course . . .
But I’m no spring chicken. Sooner or later my health is going to fail sufficiently to bring me back off the road. Here’s hoping it’s at least a decade out!
@griz this sounds like a wonderful way to spend free time and you describe it beautifully! what inspired you to take an online psychology course?
@Scarlett
I needed a better understanding of all the victimhood power groups and social justice warriors invading our society as a relatively recent phenomenon.
It’s too easy to hate that which we don’t understand.
But then something else happened, and I started really enjoying what I was learning and seeing how it applied to so many other things in life!
Working for myself gives me all the free time I choose to accept. However, working for myself means if I don’t work I won’t eat. I think I am OK with finding the balance. I can be satisfied with a burger, over filet mignon any day.
I spend my “free” time thinking and appreciating and at times whining about the state of things. I love to read. I love to hike and I love to be with people I really like. That number is pretty few and includes my wife, my kids, my grandson, my dog and a very small handful of people that I can accept as genuine. That seems to be a rarity in my world.
Yes, there is too much and too little. It is our responsibility to find the right balance.
@spitfire3dc now that I work from home, I don’t find more free time, but I find free time where I want it instead of always having to fit it in at the beginning and end of a day, because my company says it doesn’t really matter when I do the work, as long as I get it done. I find myself working a lot early in the morning before the world is awake. these sound like lovely ways to spend free time. I also enjoy hiking, and I have my people. I like people I can have long conversations with, and I have found that now that my children are nearly grown (19 and 20), I can do exactly that with them. I mustve rubbed off on them a little.
The concept of “free time” is highly subjective.
Perhaps the term “leisure time” would be more appropriate in your scenario.
TIME is a construct of the mind. It has been speculated that time can be infinite, it can be traveled in, or is part of space/time in astrophysics. Time is only limited by what one does with it. Before the invention of mechanical clocks that divided the day into measured segments of activity, the concept of time had relatively little meaning to man. What one accomplished between sun rise and sun set was all that mattered to man. As man advanced with technologies that improved his situation in life; such as the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire and it’s uses, man began to accomplish more tasks between sun up and sun down. The wheel enabled man to travel farther in a day, and fire gave a man light to labor by at night. The measuring of time was still rather insignificant to man, as he was busy just trying to survive in his early world.
Now step forward a few thousand years. Man invents the mechanical clock to regulate the hours in a day (and night) and man has become a slave to his own technology. Man busies himself still to survive, but now his days, hours, minutes, and seconds must be accounted for by his silly mechanical device…the clock. Man has no free time. Free time does not exist. Leisure time however does exist. A man chooses to use time to his advantage by not laboring tirelessly from sun up to sun down. Personal choice allows a man to relax between his labors. Therefor leisure time is the more appropriate term…
All our time is our own.