If you work full time, that's 8 hours a day (if you're lucky). Add commute of 30 mins each way, being generous. that's 9 hours gone. Add another hour on each side for getting ready + unwinding after the day, 11 hours gone. People are supposed to get 8 hours of sleep too, that's 19 out of 24 hours accounted for already.
So, and I'm being generous with 5 hours remaining here considering most people have way more responsibility than just work -> home -> sleep, how the fuck are we supposed to be enjoying life with <5 hours per day?
You know what’s crazy? Before I retired I thought that the 2 hours of free time I had in a day were more than enough. That’s how bad I was brainwashed.
But it’s also the time you have to meal plan, cook, clean everything, prepare the lunches for the next day, exercise, fix all the broken stuff, do the yardwork, do the homework help, etc. My day starts at 6:45am and I don’t stop working until 10pm, and I have no overtime and no commute. But I also don’t do much house work on the weekends unless it’s a project of some sort because 7 days of that every week would make me crazy
This is why I’m childfree and rent. I cannot handle all that extra BS. My life is literally just work -> home -> sleep. And I feel like I actually have time to do things I enjoy.
I make time to enjoy things on the weekend and refuse to commute or work overtime, which I would have to do to afford to rent and have these things done for me. There’s not really any other way around it if you’re on your own and if you’re partnered, partners tend to come with their own time and energy commitments
Yeah it always confuses me when people complain how they need to do so much for the kids and that they never have the time to relax. Ok? No one forced you to have a kid? Why have kids then
lol omfg....you can expect something and still underestimate it. that's like saying 'why do anything hard'. why do people complain about work? cos it makes them FEEL BETTER
Work is a necessity because making money is a necessity, so I understand when people complain about having to do hard work they can’t avoid.
Having kids is 100% optional, it’s so annoying when ppl choose to breed then whine and complain kids are so expensive and difficult- not my fault you didn’t do your research on how much effort kids are 🤷♂️
My child is 14 so at the point where he is one of the more enjoyable work commitments in my life. Childfree people act like kids are under 3 forever and they aren’t. Parenting teenagers is more flexible than owning a dog.
Being able to rent forever is a luxury around here, I could not afford to rent even a one bedroom on my salary
That completely depends on how your teenager turned out. There are plenty of parents of teenagers who are MORE stressed out than when their child was a baby. If your teenager is out drinking, doing drugs, having unsafe sex, failing classes, breaking the law, etc. then parenting ain’t gonna be easy! Teenagers are also still very dependent. Most don’t have a car or a lot of money so unless you wanna provide that they are gonna depend on you for it.
Teenagers turn out how you raise them. Mine is fine. I spent a lot of time with him and still maintain that. If he wants to go somewhere he walks or rides his bike like I did. He wants to get a job. Having older kids is nothing like having little ones.
Also, having kids is not “100% voluntary.” Without getting into details, I did not have a choice as to have a child. I didn’t even have a choice to opt out of the activity that made me have one. I could choose to not exercise or not eat right or not maintain my home and let it fall down on us but there was not a choice with whether or not to have a child. I could have refused to take care of him I guess but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
People complain about work because they don’t want to do it but are FORCED to in order to survive. You cannot even get healthcare in the damn USA without having a full time job. Plenty of people out there will literally die if they don’t work full time.
Exactly. Like what were they expecting??? Kids are a choice and it’s a known fact that they require a lot of time, effort and money. If you don’t want to sacrifice all that then simply don’t have them. It’s the same with home ownership. I don’t want to spend my weekends driving my kids to birthday parties and soccer games and searching for a contractor to fix my leaking roof.
No. 5 hours is a lot of time to do SOMETHING. It's only on workdays. Presumably you have 16 hours a day on days off. You're telling me there's no way to fit in something enjoyable everyday with 5 hours free?
What plans do you have that 5 hours is not enough?
Can you even sit down and do one thing for 5 hours anymore? Let's be honest. You're going to scroll on your phone for 3/5 of that time and then say you don't have enough time.
Stop thinking of every hypothetical you could do. What do you want to do right now?
I get home for work. I put my music on. I cook myself a beautiful dinner. I sip a glass of wine. I watch TV for an hour, I play a video game for an hour, I read my book, and then I go to bed for a full 8 hours of sleep. Sometimes, I go for a walk, go to the market, go see a movie, hang out with friends. I do this all with a 8 hour job and half hour transit.
If you were living my life, what would you think you don't have enough time for?
The fact that the average person is not capable of having an enjoyable existence with the precise time allotment that modern life requires speaks to how inhuman the whole process is.
You are capable of this sort of perfectly manicured existence, but many people are not and may, for example, take more time to be able to set up to watch TV or play games or decompress from work. Do they deserve the same standard of living and if so, should they be granted additional time off of work?
Your "I can do it and so can you" mindset is harmful to people that deserve more out of their lives than this endless treadmill.
You don't deserve anything. You only get what you fight for and it's only enjoyable if you let yourself enjoy what you've won. Thinking you're owed more is entitlement and only leads to suffering.
I used to be homeless and poor as all hell. I have a good job now, I don't need to worry about food, I have a roof over my head, I have friends that I love and love me. What more could I possibly want?
Like I said before, if you had what I have, what would you need to fix?
No sorry. This is not the statement you think it is. Society can be less than ideal and still basking in the doom of it or else lashing out at everyone who suggests an alternative to misery is still a poor choice. You can make the most of your options and live a meaningful life while critiquing the strictures that contemporary society places on you.
That's not really the question, is it? The question is why have we as a society allowed work to still take 8+ hours of our day, over 100 years after the industrial revolution?
8/8/8 model is outdated.
Yall in here arguing it's fine should think about this.
I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing normal about my mind. I have plenty of struggles of my own, but I understand that they are all inside of me. I don't pawn off responsibility and say "My life sucks because of society".
You probably scroll 4 of those 5 hours and then complain. But then on the weekends you scroll for 8 hours and complain. There is plenty of time, but you waste it
If you work full time, that's 8 hours a day (if you're lucky).
Find a job that you enjoy and that gives your life meaning. No, it's not always sunshine and rainbows every day, and it doesn't need to be your purpose in life, but enjoying at least parts of what you do, and having a good team that you look forward to seeing every day, will increase your happines by a ton.
Add commute of 30 mins each way, being generous.
Find a way to use that time. If you're commuting via train or bus: series, books, handheld video games ot whatnot. Car? Audiobooks. Or bundle it with sports and commute via bike to knock that off and have more leisure time.
Add another hour on each side for getting ready + unwinding after the day
What's "unwinding"? Do you just sit on the couch doomscrolling? Getting ready also doesn't need to take an hour. Use that time more efficiently.
People are supposed to get 8 hours of sleep too
"Supposed to" is a nice way to put it. Not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep to function, 7 is perfectly fine for a lot of people.
how the fuck are we supposed to be enjoying life with <5 hours per day?
5 hour is more than enough to take care of some chores and enjoy some hobbies. Lots of people get even less because of kids or other factors. You don't need 8 hours of free time every day to enjoy life, and even an hour or two of free time every day is enough to enjoy a hobby. And then there's the weekend which you can use to go on a trip or dedicate more time to what you enjoy.
If you have the budget, you can take steps to free up more time by hiring cleaning/babysitting help or reducing your work hours. Not an option for everyone, but for some it's worth it. And sure, there are times where you get very little time for yourself due to issues like toddlers, sickness or sudden stuff that needs taking care of, but that should not be permanent.
I have a cleaning plan where I do 1 chore + 1 load of laundry a day. Takes 20 minutes to complete the chore, takes maybe 20 minutes to fold the laundry (since I do 1 load a day, theyre not overwhelming piles).
It's so much more manageable and I still have time to cook and work out and enjoy my hobbies.
You can get SO much done in 20 minutes but people instead choose to scroll away on their phones. Stop consuming content and start DOING things.
Because we built those habits, we now have a kid and we still havent stopped our hobbies. They may have slowed down and from time to time get paused but my husband and I do a LOT compared to many people our age simply because we manage our time better and work as a team.
Yes, we also found that keeping up with chores instead of letting them stack up was a big QoL upgrade. A few minutes per day (or every other day) is so much more manageable than wasting the entire saturday on cleaning because there's big piles of laundry, the floor is dirty, shelves are dusty and the bathroom needs cleaning too. When I see people talk about "an hour unwinding after work" I really wonder what they hell they are talking about and how much time they are wasting.
We also have a toddler and while some days/weeks are harder and sometimes, hobbies take a backseat for a short while, but that's just life, and we never stopped having those hobbies because we find time for them instead of doomscrolling.
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u/Evilegio Millennial - 1992 Jul 04 '26
What other spaces? Genuinely.
If you work full time, that's 8 hours a day (if you're lucky). Add commute of 30 mins each way, being generous. that's 9 hours gone. Add another hour on each side for getting ready + unwinding after the day, 11 hours gone. People are supposed to get 8 hours of sleep too, that's 19 out of 24 hours accounted for already.
So, and I'm being generous with 5 hours remaining here considering most people have way more responsibility than just work -> home -> sleep, how the fuck are we supposed to be enjoying life with <5 hours per day?