Number of Chicken Soup For The Soul Booksbooks: 85
Total Self Improvement Market:
2000: $5.7 billion
2004: $8.5 billion
2008: $12 billion (estimated)
Number of Americans who take antidepressants: 20 million
Fastest Growing Market for antidepressants: Preschoolers
Number of ads a typical kid sees by age sixteen: 6 million
Number of breast augmentations in 2000: 187,755
Source: Utne Reader article "Shiny Happy People" by Anjula Razdan - May 2005 Edition
With all that self-help stuff going on how come I'm still fat, depressed and poor?
With our independent natures we want to work from the inside out, pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and get thin, happy, richer and smarter. We want MORE. Whatever we are, or have, it isn't enough.
What we might need rather than more stuff, diets, books, or money is simply more time. Time to think about who we are, what got us where we are and where we want to go. Time to be thankful for what we have.
Time to realize what is enough. Time to be with our families, our children, our friends and by ourselves.
Time to turn off the TV, the computer, the radio and just be.
Timothy Leary told us to Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
maybe in the 21st century we can "Tune out, Turn Off, and Drop In" - on a neighbor, friend, or family member.American's spend more time at work and less leisure time than any other industrialized nation. Our idea that labor-saving devices would free us for more of the "good life" turned into a cruel joke with our totally connected virtual environment.
It's probably not time for the typical working stiff to -
Join the IWW Fight for a Shorter Work Week!
However if you think about it the call for a return to "family values", from George Bush and others, wrings pretty hollow if Mom or Dad is working 50 hours a week to make ends meet.
Before you get to worked up about the IWW calling for a 20 hour work week there's a couple of dirty little secrets about the idea that we have a "40 hour work week" today.
The first is pretty benign but still important for those who are impacted. A 40 hour work week is really a 45 or 50 plus hour work week. Why? If you've ever driven in Seattle you'd know why. But even for those who don't have much of a commute there's still prep-time and decompress time before they could have any meaningful interaction with their spouse, children, or friends.
The second is more insidious and more interesting.
No one works a 40 hour week.
I wrote that really small because I thought it was a secret but it really isn't as this Microsoft survey showed Workers Average Only Three Productive Days per Week.
The point being that between commuting and "being at work" (as opposed to performing a meaningful task for your employer...which Microsoft tells us we do about 24 hours a week) we are spending 40-50 plus hours of our lives away from our homes, families, friends and communities.
We could stop building work spaces away from where we live; and then make our work time more efficient so we can get what we today call 40 or 50 hours of work - done in 30 (and then spend that extra 10 or 20 hours of leisure time doing something constructive for ourselves, family, friends and communities).
Maybe we will.
In the meantime here's some things you can do to carve out some more time for the things that are important to you -
Take what Andrew Weil calls a news fast. Don't worry about whether the world is going to survive for the next day and instead enjoy your self in the world.
Stop reacting like a Pavlovian dog. If the phone rings, or the email comes in, or your pager buzzes - let it go. I'm assuming no emergency room physician's read my blog. Anyone can screen their incoming calls and email. Train people to expect an email reply from you in a day or a week or whatever works for you.
Take all your vacation and sick leave. Nobody is impressed with the fact that you show up for work every day. What impresses people is if you show up for work, happy, refreshed, ready to go - most days. On a side note - people say the main cause of complaining at work is boredom - if you're bored with your work - change jobs, life's too short to spend it not doing something you enjoy.
Fix your throttle. You don't have to do everything at top speed. A lot of things are more fun if done slowly. I'll leave it at that.
Cancel an appointment or a meeting you've set up. The people who were going to attend will be thankful.
Learn something new and do some new things. There's nothing like getting out of the rut to slow down our perception of time.
Quit thinking you've got it all figured out. I'm writing this as a "note to myself" but it might apply to some other Mr./Ms. Know It Alls. There's a whole hell of a lot of stuff you don't know. Life is a mystery...take the time to explore it.
Know when to say when. Take some time to figure out when you will have enough. What's really important? Opt out of the advertising driven consume more cycle, give yourself more time to think, breathe, be with family, friends, pets, in the community (actually in the community not in a virtual sense).
For most of us poor schmucks, in the long run nobody is going to care much about what we did on this earth, but someone will care how we did it. Taking the time to care about your self enough to recognize what a beautiful and unique being you are and then radiating some of that beauty to others - that will last.
There truly is no time like now.
Peace
Don't Hurry; Be Happy
Take Back Your Time
How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor
The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and Overworked- 21st Century Edition
