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Time Poverty
“Time poverty” is a tough reality. It means our days are too full of work, and time runs out too fast. It’s the feeling of always racing against time, but never catching up.
Many surveys tell us the same sad story: most of us feel like we’re always out of energy, always trying to catch up with time that keeps getting away. That’s a big shock, right?
The saddest part of time poverty isn’t the rush. It’s the real stories from people’s lives. Imagine a colleague saying, “My kids don’t really know me;” or, “I’m losing the simple joys of life.”
These stories are real. People are losing touch with important things in life like curiosity, kindness, and connecting with our natural environment. There is often focus on the task at hand, going against natural laws like flow.
Here’s the surprise: a lot of our time poverty doesn’t come from things we must do. We bring it on ourselves, thanks to too our overstuffed calendars of rushing from meeting to meeting or checking off items on our exploding to-do lists.
Chasing Opportunity or Time Poverty?
The term “time poverty” started being used in the late 1900s and early 2000s. Researchers used it when they started focusing more on work-life balance, fairness between men and women, and how we use our time. All of which are based on division.
Simply put, we’re stuck in a problem we created. After all, humans made up time—a measure we invented and then got stuck to. But we don’t have to keep going this way.
With big storms ahead, our world and our workplaces need more critical thinkers and opportunity makers, not just order takers completing tasks or attending meetings. We need dialogue, questioning and an ability to walk our talk; not just talk. But truly connect, heart-to-heart.
Wholeness means the ability to naturally integrate pieces of ourselves to function harmoniously in any given situation or circumstance. Universal law teaches us that wholeness heals and that fragmentation weakens.
Consider this, a person seeing opportunity finds possibilities everywhere, while a person choosing time poverty fixes endless problems, most likely in a hamster wheel.
So, isn’t it time to leave behind BS work, time poverty, always being busy, and thinking being productive is the holy grail? It’s an opportunity, for sure, but don’t we want more time to enjoy being human again?
Wouldn’t it be amazing to shift from being “time poor” to “fully living our lives” and experimenting? What healthy habits can we create?
Related: Boss-Zilla and Mental Health