Time affluence allows us to relax, pursue experiences and savor pleasures.
Nona Walia
Time has slowed down in these last few months of the pandemic. Suddenly, we are now 'Time Affluent'. It's about having abundant time for the things you need. Everyone is cooking up slow dishes, taking leisure naps, reading books. Time is a new luxury that not many people know how to utilize. Before the pandemic, we were materially affluent, but a time famined society. Everyone was running with no time. The Culture of Busyness had overtaken us. In his book Happier, Tal Ben-Shahar, the instructor of a popular positive psychology course at Harvard, writes, "Time affluence is the feeling that one has sufficient
time to pursue activities that are personally meaningful, to reflect, to engage in leisure. Time poverty is the feeling that one is constantly stressed, rushed, overworked, and behind. All we have to do is look around us and often within ourselves“ to realize the pervasiveness of time poverty in our culture. Increasing your time affluence is hard work, especially in a hectic modern world loaded with distractions: cell-phones, email, forum messages, family, career, school, advancement, professional relationships, and social responsibilities."
One of the biggest gifts of the pandemic has been 'Time Affluence'. But have we made the most of it? Not really. With a lot of soul-searching going on in Corona-times, how we ultilise is this excess time is critical to our inner well-being. We have got back our time. Over the next decade, a new generation of time economists will invent and advocate new ways to appreciate our most universal human asset: Time for happiness and success. The pandemic has made the world realise and evaluate where and how they want to spend their time. Researcher Tim Kasser, calls time affluence “a path toward personal happiness.” The problem is, most of us don’t cultivate it in our overstuffed culture. We are a materially affluent society, but we are a time-deprived society in most places around the world. Time affluence allows us to relax, pursue experiences and savor pleasures. Having unstructured time supports more creativity. Most creative innovation happens in the space of 'Time Affluence' when we are in a relaxed state of being.
Being in isolation, we are thinking about poverty and affluence in terms of time. Some people have more control over their 24 hours than others. The world has woken
upto "Take Back Your Time" Movement during these last few months. Last year, a survey of 2.5 million Americans revealed that 80% of them did not have the time to do
everything they needed to do each day. How we use and manage time, underlies our stream of experiences, it's a measure of how well we live our life. The pandemic
brought a pause to Time Deficit, and put us in 'Time Affluence' zone. We had the time to do everything we wanted in our homes. Suddenly Time did not pass with a steady
flow. The passage of time and duration has slowed. According to research on Happiness, Yale University's Course on Science of Well-Being, 'Time Affluence' increases our happiness quotient, it allows us to experience happy emotions. It makes us believe life is good. The
digitization of society, smart-phone addiction aside, 'We are going through a phase of Time Affluence, how we ultilise this time, relax, reduce stress, become more
creative, enjoy new skills and experiences will enhance the quality of life. According to a study, as we age, we grow more attuned on how to wisely allocate time. This phenomenon, called socioemotional selectivity theory, it believes as we grow older, our focus shifts from feeling like our future is infinite to finite. We gain a better appreciation for our limited time, we reorient our life better. The “Take Back Your Time” movement will re-focus beliefs on lifestyle, workstyle, and strategies for increasing personal control over time. Woody Tasch author, Slow Money writes in his book, "The economics of time are changing. I don’t think we need a new generation of economists who study time. I think we just need a bunch of people who come to their senses. Coming to our senses would be something like this: recognizing that we have a choice. We need the gumption to slow down with a portion of our lives and do what we know we need to do."
How Time Affluence Impacts Us:
* It allows us to build confidence.
* Have a soundness of judgment.
* Enjoy Simplicity of life.
* Having less, without having to worry about the basic necessities of life, creates an inviting space to do creative things.