Saved by Keely Adler
The way we view free time is making us less happy
Nonetheless, there was something a little spooky about how widely the beneficial effects of synchronized vacation rippled through the country. Hartig showed that even retired people, despite not having jobs from which to take a break, were happier when more of the Swedish workforce was on holiday. That finding echoed other research, which has demon
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Despite the headline focus on happiness, Robinson’s most unexpected insights were about American discontent. We may constantly complain about our harried schedules, but the real joy-killer seemed to be the absence of any schedule at all. Considerably less happy than the just-rushed-enough, he said, were those with lots of excess time.
The Atlantic • How Civilization Broke Our Brains
What counts is not the work but our relationship to it. Schopenhauer, refreshingly, ascribed far more importance to what one does with one’s leisure. The ideal he describes (and he goes into some detail about how to sensibly store capital and live off the interest) is to be wealthy enough to have expansive free time and the…
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Derren Brown • Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine
The Buddhist teacher Susan Piver points out that it can be surprisingly radical and discomfiting, for many of us, to ask how we’d enjoy spending our time.9 But at the very least, you shouldn’t rule out the possibility that the answer to that question is an indication of how you might use your time best.