Friday, January 27, 2006

I don't have time.....

Okay, I promised a post about this.

People are constantly saying they don't have time ... for whatever. They're so busy, they've got so much going on, they just don't have time for stuff.

Why is it that in our society it makes you look bad if you have a little free time?

I absolutely HATE it when people use time as an excuse. "I wish I had time to scrapbook ..." "I would love to learn to cook better but I'm just so busy ..."

Oh, bullshit.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. The things that are important to us, we MAKE time for. You love to ski? Then you find a way to do that, don't you? Maybe you sleep less, maybe you work 80 hours a week so you can take 4 days off to ski, maybe you skip your favorite TV show or the big game to ski. You're making choices about HOW you want to spend your time, but you don't have any less time than me or the guy down the street.

Same goes for scrapbooking. I am a busy woman. I have 3 children, a blog, multiple volunteer positions, I read a lot, I enjoy cooking, I spend time with friends, I play board games and read with my kids ... and occasionally I scrapbook. It is an artistic outlet for me, a way to express myself. It is a method of sharing my beliefs with my kids -- and of simply expressing the things that are important to me. I have done scrapbook pages about celebrities who've touched my life, about people close to me who have died, about my passion for politics and my belief that it is my responsibility to make the world a better place for myself, my children, and the world at large.

I am really tired of all these women who show up to volunteer at school (for a 3rd grade painting project) in dress clothes and heels. Who ARE you, anyway? They all stand around and have a conversation that could be titled, "I AM busier than you are, really!"

We are ALL busy. I make no judgments on how you spend your time -- it's your life and clealy my opinion on your activities does not matter at all. But the next time you tell someone you don't have time to do something, think about it -- do you really not have time or could you give up that hour in the evening where you watch mindless TV? If you enjoy the mindless TV, fine. Again, not my choice. But don't tell me you don't have time when what you really mean is "I don't choose to spend my time in that way."

3 comments:

  1. A very thought provoking post. I am guilty of letting time get away from me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:21 PM

    My trouble isn't so much that I don't have enough time. Well, ok it is, but it's that I could do with a couple extra hours in each day and at least one extra day in each week, and really who wouldn't love that! But seriously, it's prioritizing my time that I have trouble with. I think I just WANT to do too much, and that means some things just don't happen. Unfortunately it's the things that should happen that get missed and the things that maybe could have waited that do get done which then puts me further behind.

    I get very frustrated by the woman that runs my church group. She wants these events to happen or someone to attend events that are happening in her stead. She is always with the "I don't have time to do all this" line, but she then foists her ideas off onto others maniuplating them into feeling like "well, I guess I have a hour, I could do that" so they help her out. However, she is ungrateful about it and then tells you you're doing it all wrong, or ignores your effort in favor of what she wanted all along. So I umm...quit. And well, that ought to free up some more time right? ;)

    I do agree with you though, that you must make the time to do what you want. I just need to work on not wanting to do so very many things and being a little more willing to accept that I have plenty of time in my life to learn to knit...a skill that's been around for 100s of years isn't likely to up and vanish in the next 20 or so.

    Now...back to work!

    P.S. It's beyond me why anyone would wear heels in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12:14 PM

    Or... my other favorite.... I don't have time to read. If it's important to you --- you make the time.

    ReplyDelete