It’s funny to think how far we’ve come as a species to be able to have so much free time on our hands.

We have endless articles and debates about screen time, binge watching TV shows via streaming, social media concerns and if you take a step back, you realize none of this is possible unless we have ample time at our disposal.

Automation continues to streamline our lives, freeing up even more time in our day. Those few minutes saved from each iteration of technology has quietly added space to our schedule, whereupon we immediately try to fill it with something.

Yet, even with all this time we have before us, it seems we are busier than ever — too much to do and not enough hours in the day.

However, this problem is not new.

I left a book review on a work (now in the public domain and therefore, free), on how to live on twenty four hours a day. It was written in 1910 when the Industrial Revolution, combined with workers rights and the eight hour workday, were also giving people the same issue:

I’m a slave to my job, there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it.

Maybe the problem isn’t a lack of time, but an inability to know what to do and therefore we’re filling our schedule with everything we can or mindlessly using it up. The underlying concern may be a fear of missing out or indecisiveness, which are really two sides of the same coin.

There’s also an inherent guilt for taking that leisure time for yourself.

Seems like a catch-22 as we worked hard as a species to get that time and now we’re being told to use that time to hustle and work hard.

The fix is simple, but excruciatingly difficult to follow:

Work hard at what you do and enjoy the off-time when it comes.