Time Affluence

Lets be real, TIME is the one thing we want more of.  TIME is what we crave. TIME is what should be added to our health and wellness inventories. TIME for noticing, feeling, listening, and connecting with others.  TIME, is how we should be measuring affluence.

In this world of snowballing to-do lists, endless piles of both visible AND invisible work, impossible parenting standards alongside childcare shortages, and 24/7 connectivity (with the unwritten expectations that go along with that access), our humanity, sanity, and wellness, is at stake.

We must acknowledge the dire drought we find ourselves in, the drought of time, and we must DO something about it. Organizations must DO something about it. Government must DO something about it. And, importantly, families must DO something about it. We must change things at home and intentionally carve time for hanging our feet off a dock, soaking in a ray of sun, breathing that mountain air, feeling the wind blow through our hair, and adding valuable hours to our sleep. We need to be ok with letting time stand quiet and still. We need to just stop.

It sounds impossible, doesn’t it. In fact, some of you reading this right now are judging, laughing at the impossibility, or presuming that I may be out of touch with the reality of YOUR life …a life that pulls at your time from every direction.

And, you are right, I don’t know YOUR life.

But, I do know this. We spend billions of dollars on things, diets, gyms, activities, driving driving driving and shuttling ourselves and our children towards unrealistic and impossible goals to nowhere. Study after study shows that happiness and wellness are not measured by owning more, by doing more, by striving harder and longer. Happiness is found in the moments where we have TIME for creativity, flow, connection, and leisure.  Happiness comes from building relationships, from connecting with others, from gratitude …from time affluence. This is when we are rich in life.

So, it is essential that we must change our dialogue on time and craft a world where we don’t stigmatize those that build leisure time into their life, that we don’t revere “pulling all-nighters”, cramming our schedules, and working late. Time is essential for our health, happiness, and well-being and, yet, we continue to starve ourselves of this essential nutrient.

It is time to value flow (which leads to productivity), sleep (which sharpens our mind), play (which build connections), and space for stillness (which unlocks creativity).

It is TIME that we prioritize and value affluence in new ways.