S1. What Would You Do if You Had More Free Time?
Please use a smidgeon of your time to respond to this little survey.
Dear friends,
I’ve been working on a letter with the title “Why Do We Work so Much?” but I’ll wait until after Christmas to post it. After that I’ll prepare a letter about the ways we might spend time if we had more of it. To help me prepare for that letter, I’d love to see your response to the question in the title above.
Occasionally I will use Substack not to impart information and ideas but to gain them through a survey of readers. I will label those letters with an S. This is S1—the first of my surveys.
As briefly or as elaborately as you would like, please use the comment section here to say what you would do, or how your life would change, if you had more time every day to do whatever it is you would like to do. I am truly curious.
Have a great holiday
Peter
PS: If you aren’t already subscribed to Play Makes Us Human, please consider subscribing now.
Nothing. I would simply enjoy the free time as that, for doing what I felt like in that particular moment. After all the moment we "do" something it stops becoming free time because we've scheduled it and/or committed to it in some way. Culturally this goes against the way we are taught to think and be in most of our current societies which value drive, motivation, purpose, achievement, influence, etc. Is it not enough just to "be" some of the time? Or must we call this "me-time" or "meditation" or "down time" or "holiday" or "spending more time with my family" to give ourselves permission just to be?
I spent most of my life rushing about. When I stopped being a school principal after 8.5 years in 2007, I promised myself I would only do work that was play for me and that I would do all the things I didn't have time to do as a principal. Whilst I did work hard, it never felt like work. I loved 95% of it - I became an education consultant specialising in learning and play outdoors and did substitute teaching.
Now I only have months to live, as I have a blood cancer (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) which can no longer be treated. Aside from medical matters which take up too much of my precious time, it's "free" time and I continue to love every moment. I'm still busy but have freedom to choose. Whilst death is close - I'm in my mid fifties, I know I have a privileged life and grateful to have had the experiences, good fortune, deep friendships and capacity that have enabled me to have such a free life (alongside living in a wealthy country). I was the family breadwinner until very recently and deliberately paid myself a modest income which was usually slightly less than the UK average most years I was a consultant.
I have 3 young kids and, although my husband tries his best, I'm not yet able to leave the kids alone. If suddenly that changed, I would go back to salsa dancing. It was something my Mum frowned upon when I first started as an 18 year old, compared to the other activities I did as a child (which she overly praised and tried to encourage - none of which I want to do anymore either). It was the one place I felt was 100% my choice, and the other salseras always made me feel welcome.
As a side note, my brain never stops thinking. Salsa is the only thing I've found which forces my brain to switch off, as I have to concentrate enough to follow the man's lead but, by following the lead, I am not in control of anything at all, so my brain is unable to think of other worries. It's also a social time and having moved around a lot, has been an easier way to get to know people than just randomly going upto people and trying to make small talk.