Short of time?

IS TIME SHRINKING

 

 

Nowadays people are short of time. How could it be? Everybody has 24 hours a day. True. People find it difficult to make for time for extra social activities other than essential and routine family affairs. Present day working world is more automated, wired and well connected. Intelligent machines do multitude of work in minutes, store and retrieve data easily. Instead of finding more leisure we are left with less time. Especially in IT, communication, finance, service industries, people work more than 12 hours a day and have to adjust their working time as per American workday thus disrupting their sleep pattern and sometimes family design too!

 

It is a million dollar question. Computers were invented/developed to remove routine/drudgery from human working life. Though most physical drudgery is reduced to a great extent, mental drudgery or stress has been increased phenomenally.

 

Present day work culture is open. Sky is the limit for those who work hard. They can reach top rung of the line of work by sheer work. Economy is ruled by market. So there is competition for progress, growth, cost cutting, service and reaching the last customer. Owner is constrained by capital, payouts, time etc. Thus entrepreneur wants more out of his investment, employee wants more salary out of his work and time, consumer wants more value for less money and so on and so forth.

 

Thus these days' mores have changed. That 'longing for more everywhere and everybody must naturally lead to shortening of something else such as time, peace of mind etc. Now tell me. Whether time is shrinking or we are putting too much pressure on time.

 

Ultimately the answer lies in our attitude and stand. Nowadays we are finding more people attracted towards professions and hobbies like painting, art, dance, music, social service etc. which will stimulate their mind and soul rather than only bread and butter. Man does not live by bread alone. As a man progresses he needs higher needs as illustrated by Abraham Maslow's theory of needs. Once one's basic needs like food, shelter and clothing and safety and security needs are fulfilled he will naturally tend to satiate his aesthetic, emotional, self actualisation/realisation needs. Now we find more such people.