High Value Time

I am indebted to the good folks at Draft to Digital for pointing me toward an interesting essay by Lisa Sibbett (you can get the jist without finishing the part of the piece behind the sign-up wall). Her topic is free time, the places on our calendar without appointments, to-dos, scheduled self care… time off. She notes that people who often have a fair amount of this time–retirees, people who are under- and unemployed, people with disabilities–are usually considered excused from contributing to the marketplace or, more often, they are regarded as somehow slacking. And yet, when there’s a new baby on the way, it’s grandma who hops on a plane, catches up mom’s housekeeping, lays in two weeks worth of groceries, freezes a week of good meals, and lets mom snatch some sleep. When a therapeutic riding barn is trying to provide services on a shoestring budget, it’s the people who don’t over-schedule themselves who can spare a couple hours a week to help get a brain injured veteran on a…