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How much free time do you have?

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Re: How much free time do you have?

#151

Post by scotty79 »

kd5bjo wrote: post #128
alltakendamned wrote: post #112

I am always somewhat puzzled by the focus on free time without taking into account the energy balance of a person. I find often that when someone says “I don’t have the time”, what they really mean is that they don’t have energy left to take on something else. In my case, I find that there’s often enough hours, but I don’t always have the energy to be active 100% of that time and just end up taking some rest.

The trick seems to be to identify your various different out-of-energy states and what activity is consistently restorative for each. Then, get experience with those activities when you’re fresh so that you have less of a hurdle to jump over when you really need them. The biggest issue, of course, is that it requires you to experiment with new things when you’re dead tired in order to figure out what helps in the fir…

I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit.

I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I slept for few hours and after that wake up and be semi-funtional human again, able to do homework or enjoy myself for a bit.

The problem was I got addicted to TV and I watched it even if I wasn't that tired and theoretically had energy to entertain myself with something that had better joy/effort ratio than TV. Instead I always defaulted to TV which costed me too much energy for enjoyment provided.

Eventually I had to ask my mom to put a parental lock on TV and even then after school I was lying in front of turned on TV that showed no channel (due to parental lock) pushing buttons at random trying to unlock it. I even managed to unlock it once (3 digit code) but couldn't repeat it.

Eventually my dumb brain learned that lying in front of a TV no longer gives me any joy (because I can't turn the channels on) and I shook the addiction.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#152

Post by TeMPOraL »

an_ko wrote: post #105
thomaswang wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a forced activity? Not a parent I suppose. It is as forced as work. You don't have to work just as you don't have to have a child.

Were you forced to have children?

You can choose not to have a child (though caveats around carelessness apply). You kind of cannot opt out of parenting once you have a child. Not if you wish to remain a decent human being. It's kind of forced on you, even more so than a job, because it's much easier to change jobs or just go on a welfare than to stop doing all the parenting each day as a parent throws at you.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#153

Post by meheleventyone »

welly wrote: post #122
meheleventyone wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think it’s important for society and the future economy?

I don't think the world is particularly short of people. We've got lots of people. Some might say "too many". I've chosen not to take up the hobby (as GP fairly described) but for every one of me, there are ten others who participate. Not everyone needs to bear children.

Right but we do actually need some people to have kids and a declining population is pretty bad for the way society is currently organized.

It's great you've decided not to have kids but denigrating others choices to have them by calling it a hobby is not cool.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#154

Post by stevekemp »

new2628 wrote: post #126
gewoonkris wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to make it a point to do all the chores when the kids are awake. When they are asleep is time to relax; not do mundane tasks I don't feel it's my duty to entertain my kinds every waking hour, so if they have to settle with watching me fold the laundry or unload the dishwasher, so be it. This probably won't win me the father-of-the-year award, and it is parenting-style me and my girlfriend don't always agree abo…

This sounds a pretty good attitude actually ... within reason you can even involve the kids in doing the chores.

Mine too.

When he was one my son used to try to push a broom around, having seen me do it almost every day of his life (wooden floors make sweeping common - especially due to his habit of throwing food around).

By the time he was 2/2.5 he was actually capable of sweeping the floor but he's been the same with a lot of simple tasks. He obviously tried to copy me, before he was able to do so.

There's a temptation to not let children help, because it does make all jobs take three/four times as long. But it's worth resisting, they can do jobs, and they should be encouraged to treat them as normal activities not "chores" done under protest, solely for financial reward.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#155

Post by em-bee »

em-bee wrote: post #67
dingaling wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my kids" It's really not, though. Before parenthood I had all these romantic 'Swallows and Amazons' ideas about lazy summer days on riverbanks and meadows. In reality time with young kids is about mundane things like making meals, doing homework, playing what they want to play, trying to coax them to help with chores that you need to get done, fi…

it gets easier as the kids get older. it also helps to have interesting hobbies yourself that you can involve your kids in. so instead of asking: how am i going to entertain this bunch on rainy weekends, ask: what hobby might i like to pick up that i can get my kids interested in. i have been struggling with that too. i am considering things like learning an instrument, programming, playing board-games. i found a sim…

what hobby might i like to pick up that i can get my kids interested in

i'd actually like to rephrase that a bit. kids are naturally interested in everything their parents do. so the question is not whether i can get the kids interested, but rather, whether is is something that is interesting for me, yet suitable for kids.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#156

Post by kd5bjo »

scotty79 wrote: post #151
kd5bjo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick seems to be to identify your various different out-of-energy states and what activity is consistently restorative for each. Then, get experience with those activities when you’re fresh so that you have less of a hurdle to jump over when you really need them. The biggest issue, of course, is that it requires you to experiment with new things when you’re dead tired in order to figure out what helps in the fir…

I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit. I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I…

In my experience, there are a lot more than two sliders but the general idea seems right. By choosing the right program, television can help fulfill all sorts of emotional needs: social, excitement, creativity, escapism, curiosity, etc.

The problem is that it’s effective for such a large range of needs, it promotes the illusion that, if you only found the right thing to watch, it can fix anything. So you end up channel surfing, wondering why you can’t find anything you’re interested in, when what you really need is a stroll outside.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#157

Post by puttycat »

This reminds me of an incredible dialogue from a remarkable Seinfeld episode (S02E02):

> GEORGE: They always make me take stock of my life and how I’ve pretty much wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.

> JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, “From this moment on, I’m not going to waste any more of it.” But then you go, “How? What can I do that’s not wasting it?”

Re: How much free time do you have?

#158

Post by sokoloff »

DanBC wrote: post #136
jclulow wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally nothing will prepare you for that. No amount of time is enough. Living your life in abject fear of that morbid possibility is crippling.

"spending time with my kids" is not "living in crippling fear of them dying".

It sounded like you were opposed to doing mundane daily chores or otherwise not giving 100% of your free time to them while they're awake for fear that you might regret that choice if they died young of cancer. That doesn't seem that far apart to this reader.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#159

Post by scotty79 »

kd5bjo wrote: post #156
scotty79 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit. I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I…

In my experience, there are a lot more than two sliders but the general idea seems right. By choosing the right program, television can help fulfill all sorts of emotional needs: social, excitement, creativity, escapism, curiosity, etc. The problem is that it’s effective for such a large range of needs, it promotes the illusion that, if you only found the right thing to watch, it can fix anything. So you end up chann…

> television can help fulfill all sorts of emotional needs: social, excitement, creativity, escapism, curiosity, etc.

Yes. I totalle agree. I think social was most important for me. The problem with TV is that it fulfills those needs but very inefficiently. It takes a lot of time of lying inert in front of TV to get any significant fulfillment. And the insidious part is that because people are lying down they think they are resting. But that's rarely true. Lying down especially for hours tires you even more.

So TV provides you with versatile fulfillment but at very slow rate and at a significant cost that's not easy to notice.

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