WHEN WILL YOU HAVE
ENOUGH TIME? PRESENTLY
Journal of Healing – Oct. 22, 2003
By Mary Koch

Are you sure you have time for this? Shouldn’t you just scan headlines and move on? Aren’t you, like so many Americans, over-worked, over-committed, over-burdened and over-stressed?

Well then, "take back your time."

That’s the mantra of a reform organization that has declared this Friday, Oct. 24, as national Take Back Your Time Day.

Instead of the leisure society that was envisioned decades ago, we Americans are working increasingly long hours. The time reformers say we are suffering an "epidemic" of over-work and over-scheduling, resulting in a "time famine."

You can find a number of ways to "take back your time" on their web site at www.simpleliving.net/timeday/. I liked some, such as "cancel something." Other ideas didn’t appeal, such as serving as a local contact person and organizer. Doesn’t spending time organizing "Take Back Your Time" events seem just a little silly?

But this time observance isn’t for laughs. The reformers have a serious goal: legislation to mandate minimum vacation or annual leave time for all workers. Many nations do this already. By law, workers in Germany get 24 days a year, in China 15 days. In the U.S.? Zip.

It’s hard to imagine this kind of legislation getting far with the unemployment count remaining high and a lot of folks grateful just to be working. There’s also the threat that more mandates imposed on employers will send more jobs South – way South, to Mexico or Peru.

* * *

NO QUESTION Americans are working longer and may be enjoying it less. I wonder, though, if we aren’t looking at this work thing through the wrong end of the telescope.

What motivates us to work? Aristotle supposedly said "We work in order to have leisure." The American culture says we work to get money to buy stuff. And then there’s a third point of view: We work to make the world better.

Call me a cockeyed idealist, but I choose door number three. I’m not suggesting we should all get jobs building hospitals in third world countries or raising food for the poor – although that’s not a bad idea.

But I know of house painters and mechanics, waitresses and beauticians, teachers and journalists who make the world a better place because of the attitude they bring to their work. It’s the quality of their time, not the quantity.

In the 20th Century we learned to measure time with the precision of an atomic clock, and we learned that time is relative. Five minutes of pain is eternal, while the final five hours before separating from a loved one is fleeting.

* * *

OBSERVING MY husband’s life, you’d think he has nothing but time. Totally paralyzed, he can’t "do" anything. It would seem that time stretches before him like a yawning chasm.

Yet just this morning he told me, "I am running out of time." I seriously disagree with him. Soon we’ll observe the 10th anniversary since his stroke. Despite his severe disabilities, he has made much progress. Not many people approaching age 72 are stronger and healthier than they were at age 63.

Not good enough. "I want more out of life," he spelled with eye-blinks. He wants to be able to walk and talk and blow his own nose again in his lifetime.

I pray he’ll be given time to reach those goals. At the same time, I recall my late father telling us the best gift of time is right now. That’s why they call it "the present," he’d say.