Time

Thousands, I mean thousands of ways to save time have been created. In my lifetime alone. And yet we never have enough of it.

Think about this. Apps, washing machines, cars, dishwashers, email, grocery pick-up, grocery delivery, same day shipping. Things that used to take hours and days, take minutes or happen instantly. We can send a picture in a second. A voice memo. A video chat. An email.

Picture if you will, showing someone from 100 years ago all of the things that have been created to save time. Show them our cell phones, our washing machines, email vs snail mail. We used to take pictures in a camera, have to wait for the film to be completely used, then physically take it to a different place to have them processed, then drive back to that place to pick them up and hope we got a few decent ones out of the bunch. No way to edit them, it just was what it was. You can now snap a picture with a device you carry in your hand and you can edit that picture in a fraction of seconds and send it to one person or a million. You push a button and your food, groceries, laundry detergent are delivered to your door. You get the idea.

A million ways and things designed to save time and yet, no one has any extra to spare. Where did it all go?

Even when we take "time off" to spend time with people we love, we stress out about filling that time up as much as possible so we didn't waste any of it. We don't actually just be, we just do.

We didn't save time. We raised the amount of crap we are expected to accomplish inside of it. None of these things actually give us more time back, they simply added to the list of things we should now be able to accomplish before noon. Every single invention that was made to make life easier just added to the amount of things we think should get done in the same amount of time.

We all have 24 hours a day. Think about what your 24 hours looked like 5-10-15-20 years ago versus what it looks like now. All of these things were designed to give us our life back but did they? Or did they just add to the expectation of what you should now be expected to complete in that same time frame.

Did we get time back? What did we do with it? Why does everyone say they don't have time, if the very thing they are doing is using every possible resource to make more time?

We didn't create space to do more of the things we loved, we created a pattern and raised the expectations. We emptied the bucket and then added more things to the bucket. If you find yourself saying there isn't enough time in the day, ask yourself how many things you utilized in that day to "save time" only to still not have any left.