What is Free Time?

We value our free time. We want more of it. We never have enough of it. But what is it and why does it feel so scarce?  

Free time is when you get to choose what you want to do.

This is compared to the rest of your time that is occupied by work meetings, family obligations, errands and chores, etc. For most of us, these commitments fill up most of our time. So when we are able to carve out a bit of “free time”, we covet it.

But what if all your time is free time?

What if you always have a choice of what to do?

You might be thinking, “I DON’T have a choice. I don’t want to do [xyz thing] but I MUST, otherwise [bad thing] will happen.”

And yes, a lot of bad things can happen if we don’t fulfill our obligations. Every choice has a consequence, and some consequences are unconscionable. This is especially the case for marginalized and oppressed identities, whose have a lot of societal pressure and/or institutionalized consequences weighing on their decision making. But in most cases*, that doesn’t take away our freedom to choose. 

I know it doesn’t feel that way!

We weren’t taught that we have agency over how we spend our time and what commitments we make. Society doesn’t want us thinking of our lives from this empowered perspective. That is especially the case for those of us socialized as women.

But I want to empower you. I want you to know that how you spend your time is always your choice.

You will likely still choose to go to those work meetings, fulfill those family obligations, and do all the adulting… but by acknowledging that these commitments are what you want to do makes them a little bit easier. It lessens the resentment of having to do them. And it exponentially increases the amount of free time you have!

*There are still millions of enslaved people on Earth. I am not speaking on their behalf or to them, nor to the millions more who are practically enslaved.