Lazy Sunday

My husband loves a lazy Sunday. Nothing on the calendar, no rush to get out of bed. It drove me crazy! I needed to get up early, go for my run, do some errands, clean the house, prepare for the week, etc. How could he be so ok with all this time on his hands and nothing to do?

I recently learned this term time affluence, which (as it sounds) means to be rich in time. In other words, it refers to the feeling that you have time to pursue leisure and other personally meaningful activities, and it’s a big promoter of happiness. And it’s also the opposite of what our society more often feels (and rewards,) which is time famine– i.e., being overly scheduled, sleep deprived, busy, productive, etc. 

Not only are we more likely to associate affluence with money than time, we’re also more likely to be praised for how much we got done in a weekend than how much we got rest. For how much we checked off our to do list than how much we checked in with ourselves. For how many meetings we had in a day than how many hours we slept in a night. 

Time affluence suggests that if we want to be happier, it’s not just about how busy we are or how much money we make, but more so how free we feel and how much time we have.

This isn’t to say that getting things done, being busy or productive, or making lots of money are bad things. It’s just to say that, doing nothing or doing something for no reason other than it brings you joy, is also not a bad thing. 

In fact, we’d be a much happier people if we all spent our Sundays more like my husband and spent our lives doing a little more nothing.