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
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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 think I would spend more time with my family, practice the guitar more, set aside more time to read my growing backlog of books, go on more walks in new places, take a WSET Diploma in wine, learn to make cheese, brew beer and cure meat, and just generally spend more time in my kitchen cooking. There are probably other things, but these are the first things that came to mind.
I’m now sat here wondering, why don’t I just try and restructure my time so that I can do these things as much as possible.