[Voices of the MZ Generation Column] How to Cultivate the Ability to Master Time

It seems that nowadays, no one says they have a lot of free time. For some reason, everyone keeps saying "I'm busy, busy," suffering from a lack of time. In this busy era, we are led to wonder whether being busy is an inevitable fate or if there is another possibility.

If you feel that time is always insufficient in your life, there are probably two main reasons. One is desire, and the other is anxiety. Desire makes every day feel insufficient. If you have a strong desire for dramas, you will always feel short of time because new dramas keep coming out, but the actual time available to watch them is limited.

Similarly, whether it is desire for work or money, the greater the desire, the more time feels scarce every day. Since a day is limited and those desires cannot all be fulfilled within it, time always feels insufficient. Especially in modern society, such desires are constantly created, so most people feel a lack of time.

We never have a calm day free from desires about where to go, what to eat, what to watch, and what to enjoy. When we have time, we feel we must go to the hair salon or dermatology clinic, play games, or catch up on movies. Netflix continuously creates real-time desires with its "next episode," and YouTube, Shorts, and Reels produce desires every second that we cannot stop. Because we cannot stop, the feeling of time shortage intensifies.

At the same time, these desires feed on anxiety and grow even larger. If you desperately want money, it also means you feel a lack and anxiety about money. Furthermore, if a greater ultimate anxiety?such as fear of being left behind, becoming suddenly poor, or falling behind?takes root in your life, you constantly chase something to avoid this anxiety.

You cannot stay still even for a moment; you keep watching videos, getting absorbed in games, or becoming addicted to shopping, trembling with anxiety while wasting time. While modern people’s lack of time may sometimes be due to having too much work, in many cases, time disappears like a tide not because there is no actual time but because of desire and anxiety.

However, a fulfilling life is likely related to becoming the master of your own time rather than having it taken away. The consumer industries of modern society create desires that did not exist and are desperate to steal time because it obviously translates into money. We pay with time instead of money for many things. We keep working to earn money and spend all our remaining time consuming, suffering from a lack of both money and time.

Reclaiming stolen time is certainly a key issue of this era. I also feel that one of the most important issues in my life is becoming the master of my time. It is necessary to stop unnecessary desires, face anxiety, and become the master of my time with a strong heart. Only by being able to touch the texture of time can we better understand the love, value, meaning, and joy within time. Gradually escaping from the state of constantly shouting "I'm busy, busy" and being able to do so on your own is the way to live life fully.

Jung Ji-woo, Cultural Critic

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.