Slow down now blog

That doesn’t seem right. However, Americans have plenty of leisure time because academics tell us so.

Last year, the Economist suggested we, in America, have plenty of time off. The article was based on the findings of Mr. Aguiar, an economist, and Mr. Hurst from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. It is no surprise that the discussion around leisure becomes quantitative. I’m sure both gentlemen are very good at counting.

The basis of the studies came from time-use diaries. This method does inform us, but only to a point. Who keeps a time-use diary anyway? Well, I admit that I do, but only because, as a copywriter, I charge by the hour. Once work is over, that is a different matter.

The learned gents argue that Americans have more leisure time than previously thought. They have collected data to prove it. I mentioned the study to my stepdaughter in New York. She works full-time, is in her thirties, married with a young child. Her indignant response was, “I’m sure no woman ever wrote for the Economist!”

It’s not easy to understand the difference between work and leisure. We don’t have an adequate definition of either. Of course, studies are only correct until something else disproves them.

Employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics don’t tell the whole story. Those numbers don’t account for people who have given up looking for work, are otherwise unable to work, or the long-term desperate. We know about what we measure, but not much else.

From anecdotal evidence, there are many of us who spend vast amounts of time, preparing for work, traveling to work, and actually working. I know this because I have conducted my own long-term study. My wife can spend a huge amount of time in the bathroom getting ready for work. Any culture that does not honor work is doomed—but we do have a tendency to overdo it.

We live in a culture of quantity. Josef Pieper’s seminal book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture warned us against the “Total World of Work.”

A vacation can be a respite from work. But if all a vacation gives us is enough renewal to go back to work, its function is limited. We vacate on a vacation: we go somewhere else. The notion is of retreat. Two weeks of activity, even in an exotic location, is unlikely to change the way we see the world.

We are an action oriented cluture. But action without the time to consider is dangerous. I went to a management consultant meeting not long ago. This is a group that keeps tight schedules. I asked who schedules unstructured time, a time to putter, or do nothing. I was met with blank stares of incredulity. Is slow that subversive?

If we don’t experience a positive and beneficial state of doing nothing, we won’t value it. Slowing down has its dangers. There is a reason some of us need the constant companionship of the TV; the radio playing in the car; the avoidance of silence. There is a terror of being alone. What might we find out?

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