I don't know if it's just me... But I've been looking around... Especially when I'm at tanjong pagar or raffles place...
Why is everyone so busy?
Everyone's rushing around.
For what?
There seems to be a lust to keep being busy.
There seems to be something wrong with someone if he's not busy...
So I was thinking...
How do most people go through their lives?
Well, they wake up, wash up change and go to work.
If they have kids they prep up the kid for school.
And it's usually a rush. If the kid gets a little grumpy the parent gets angry and drags the kid along.
Time is important. We always need to rush. We all need to stick to some form of daily timetable and we can't afford to screw it up.
And we live like this most of our lives...
Even when we travel. A lot of us also rush through our travels. Not all of us, but a lot.
Some of us have been on group tours.
It's a rush. Rush from place to place, wake up early and spend more than half the time on the bus...
Some of us go on free and easy.
And this MAY be rushed as well. Cos we want to see a lot of things. It's rare that we travel so we want to cover as much as we can.
I remember when I travelled when I was younger. After the trip, I didn't feel refreshed. I was extremely tired. Yes, it was a break from work. But I wasn't resting. I was rushing around in my travels.
And there's a minority that really takes travel easy. They walk around have coffee breaks. Set a low number of places to hit and take the trip slow.
How many people are busy on weekends? We have to rush chores, buy groceries, send kids to extra classes, meet friends, etc etc...
The weekends are precious so we have to make full use of them to do stuff. We can't afford to sit around and waste the weekend away.
Same as our days of leave. Noone wants to waste leave sitting around doing nothing.
Our off days are precious as well...
And it's stupid... This whole idea is just plain stupid.
How can we/people live their whole lives, or at least a big chunk of their lives, like this.
Rushing around all the time. Stressed up with work, stressed up when preparing kids to go to school, stressed over paying for bills, stressed and rushing to work but yet bored on the train, rushing through our holidays, stressed when we plan for our trips.
Hell... What a sad existance we all live in.
Now, of course, not all of us are like this.
But it reflects a lot of how many people live.
How often do people have chill time?
People spend good money to get chill time. They spend money to go to a nice quiet place to have an expensive glass of wine or spend money to go to a resort with no internet connection and stuff like that.
And yet... All this peace and quiet is all available just at home... For free...
So why are we rushing around for? What are we busy for?
When many of us just want to disconnect from the world. A lot of us just want to have some peace and quiet.
Imagine. If there were no marketing, how many of us would want stuff which we never knew we wanted?
Most of us grew up in an era where there were no handphones, little internet, and we all still survived. We only wanted a branded bag when we saw another friend own one.
If your parents are rich, they buy you a branded bag which you never knew you wanted when you were young. When your friends see the branded bag which you never knew you wanted, they themselves also want the branded bag that they never knew they wanted... And our whole lives pretty much work out this way.
And why do so many people spend so much time at work? Cos they need money to buy stuff that they never knew they wanted.
And the thing is... How has our own time become so precious to us. How can our own free time be so lacking? Why we people have to "beg" for leave or wait for weekends?
IT'S OUR OWN TIME!!!
And yet... We have handed over our time to our companies, organizations who keep us working. Organizations who market stuff to us to keep us working.
It's a crazy spiral.
We want stuff, we work, we work a lot, we buy stuff, we have little free time, we spend money to buy free time, we spend money to unwind, we spend so we need to work even more.
And yet... The other way works out as well...
We want less stuff, we work a little, we have a lot of free time, we relax, we disconnect, we don't want as much stuff, we don't need to work as much...
And the best part...
DOES STUFF REALLY MAKE US HAPPIER?
What makes most people happy?
Usually it's free time to do whatever we want without the insecurity of not enough money.
So which spiral do you think is the path to happiness?
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