Squeezed for Time?

Why hoping for a 26-hour day isn't the answer

Eileen Silva Kindig

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Time, like money, is what we make of it. Unfortunately, it often takes the loud knock of calamity at our door to jar us into acknowledging this truth. It's amazing what an angina attack, followed by a cardiac catheterization, can do to reorganize your priorities.

Huddled with a close friend in the hospital waiting room during my husband's surgery to determine the extent of the blockage, I realized that under the guise of disaster, Eric and I had been handed a golden blessing. God had given us a chance to choose anew how we would use the remainder of our days. We could squander our time on overwork, meaningless detail and mind-numbing pastimes; or we could spend our time with thought, grace and gratitude and savor the riches it brings.

Time Comes at a Cost

Of course spending time wisely is easier said than done. When you're up to your eyebrows in bills, careers, kids, church, friends, clutter and a cat with allergies, stopping to smell the roses may mean you'll only notice they need pruning. And who wants to add another item to their "to-do" list?

I'm increasingly convinced, however, that our perceived shortage of time may be largely of our own making. We talk incessantly about our lack of free time. Even after Eric's heart scare, he and I are right in there adding to the chaos of life. Just this past weekend, for example, I was off to Kentucky to promote my new book, while he worked a trade show in Indianapolis and our daughter stayed with a family friend.

"We don't have enough time!" we wailed to each other on the phone, knowing full well that if that excuse got any flimsier it would unravel faster than a cheap suit. The truth is, we're rich in time. What we sometimes lack is the backbone to take responsibility for how we choose to spend it.

The truth is, we're rich in time. What we lack is the backbone to take responsibility for how we spend it.

According to a poll undertaken by the Whirlpool Corporation, 61 percent of us say we would gladly trade money for more free time. Yet a different study, conducted by the Family and Work Institute, shows that what we say and what we do are two entirely different things. In 1991 the institute studied 188 companies and found that, though most of them had liberal policies regarding work schedules, less than five percent of their employees opted for part-time work and less than ten percent took advantage of flextime.

It doesn't help either that many of us are blurring the line between our professional and private lives and creating what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls "the third shift." In her book The Time Bind (Metropolitan), Hochschild asserts that instead of coming home to relax and rejuvenate at the end of the workday, we're escaping to the office and the assembly line to get away from the stress of household chores, childcare and the demands of relationships.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Summer

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