Down Time

Down Time.

This tour with Excel has given me two things in equal proportion; very, very busy periods with barely room to eat, and times of abject boredom. It is in the second  of these two instances that I write this essay. I am also writing in a car, so if you‘re prone to motion sickness, you might not like to read any further.

We are currently traveling from Timaru to Oamaru in the South Island – a distance of about 80km. This means that for about an hour I will have very little to do other than to listen to my own playlist (currently Red) and look out the window. This got me to thinking: we all have down time in our lives, and we all need it, but what do we do with it? Many of us, I suspect, spend it watching TV, reading a book or listening to music - in other words, using our down time to watch, read or listen to what others have created. But what do we give back in return? There is an interesting little equation that says that if Bill Gates saw a $100 note blowing across his path, it would not be worth his time to stop and pick it up. This means that  his time is so valuable that it benefits him more to do what he wants to do rather than to do what just about anyone else in the world would do – stop and pick up the note.

This got me thinking – when we watch TV, listen to music, or read a book, we are literally spending our “free” time on purchasing that experience. In addition to that, we will also pay cash money for the experience. We go and buy a book – purchase an album or sit through advertisements to watch our TV program, and so we end up paying twice for the one experience given that our time is worth money as well as the money we spend on the original product.

Here in New Zealand, 90 percent of people live within 40km of a beach, an unlimited free resource to go and enjoy with friends, family or even to walk the dog by yourself. We take this resource so much for granted that few of us seldom even visit a beach during the winter. New Zealand also has some phenomenal natural views, of mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, cliffs, and combinations of all the above. Yet we seem to prefer to wait for the latest two dimensional work of fiction to come out from the United States so that we can sit and absorb every line of dialogue and the sales pitches right along with it – because how many people actually use the mute button for ads anymore?

Now I am aware that not everyone enjoys the views or tramping or swimming or surfing. I am one of those people. But even if you choose to ignore the natural beauty around you, the question remains: how do you choose to spend your time, and what is your time worth to you? Do you value your time at the rate that you are paid at work? Do you have a higher standard for it? For those of you lucky enough to have children, how much time do you spend with them? Is time with them worth more to you than that promotion at work that demands those extra hours? Come to that – how much do you value your job – most people will spend forty hours a week there – is it worth your time?

How much time do you spend with your significant other, or on the search for them? Do you tend to think of your time as infinite? I know I am guilty of this one – I spend time doing things that are ultimately without use to anyone other than lining somebody else’s pockets – time I will never be able to get back. And what do I get for it? Well, in short, wasted time.  It occurs to me that as I approach 10 years of being married to my lovely wife that we have very little to show for it in terms of the material. We now own (well, are paying off) a house, but apart from that we are in much the same position that we were in when we first got married, at least in terms of material goods. But I am pleased to say that we have grown closer to each other and to others around us. We now have friends all across the country whom we keep in regular contact with, and our relationships with our families are all good. How have we done this? We have spent a large amount of our down time investing into others. We have also moved around the country quite a bit, and I’m sure that helps – but we are also both happy, both with our relationship and with our jobs. Neither of us dreads going to work, and when we are not working we also enjoy going to see our friends.

Well, we are now coming to our destination, where I am about to spend time with people I have never met before, to invest my time with them. I hope that you have appreciated the time I have just given to you. It was about an hour of my life. I’ve changed albums now and have travelled the distance between the two towns. I could have done it without thought of others; I could have done it talking to my team whom I travel with; but I thought that you, dear reader, would enjoy some more of my thoughts during this time. So please accept this essay, my time, and my editors. What will do with your down time? I would also like to thank you for giving me some of your time and reading this essay right to the end.