How time flies! In the blink of an eye, a few months have passed. Dear friends, how many of your New Year resolutions have been fulfilled? How many have not? Maybe there are some goals that have yet to be accomplished because of inadequate time.

And even as I say this, I hope that our friends here will protest loudly: “No, Angelie, you are wrong! I have achieved my targets exceedingly.”

If you’re successful, do remember to share with us your experiences which can bless many lives. Nowadays, we see a lot of people falling into the trap of busyness. In the hustle and bustle of city life, people are busy climbing up the corporate ladder. Worse still, people aren’t satisfied with their ‘success’. On the contrary, we feel the increasing pressure of work, the deterioration of physical health, debilitating emotions and more feeble spiritual lives.

The word ‘busyness’ is derived from the phrase ‘working poor’. The phrase ‘working poor’ originally meant those poor people who strove hard from morning till night yet could not get out of the poverty cycle. Later, another meaning became associated with this phrase. It referred to the attitude of ‘busyness’ in which people turned to consumerism in order to fill the void in their lives. In other words, after spending their money, people are left empty again, so they slogged hard once more to earn money to spend.

The ‘working poor’ is a community that emerged as early as the 1990s in America. Subsequently, a large community of ‘working poor’ was seen in Europe. Currently, in tandem with global developments, the ‘working poor’ is increasing in various parts of Asia.

（picture from the Internet）

Perhaps, some friends think that this isn’t a big issue, as busy lives indicate that we’re having fulfilling lives.

But is this really so?

Hong Kong television once broadcasted a reality show called the ‘Rich Mate Poor Mate Series’. They invited some wealthy people to have a taste of living in poverty for a few days. Initially, they exuded confidence as they thought that they were ‘successful people’ who were capable of overcoming any difficulty along the way.

However, after a few days, almost all the participants were despondent. Why? They discovered that they worked daily from morning till late in the night and fell asleep the moment they reached home due to exhaustion. The cycle repeated itself on the next day.

One of the participants lamented: “I am so busy that I can’t stop to rest…In such circumstances, it is impossible to plan for the coming week. The only thought that preoccupies my mind is to fill my stomach for the next meal.”

At the end of the programme, another participant added: “I know going in that the programme will end in a week’s time. However, the only phrase to describe this entire process is ‘gruelling training’. For people living in such reality, it is like a pencil which doesn’t get sharper with sharpening. Instead, it becomes shorter.”

In order to understand the life of the ‘working poor’, Barbara Ehrenreich, the American author of a bestseller book, spent a year to experience the life of the lower class in the society. Thereafter, she wrote the book ‘My Life in the Lower Class’. In the book, she concluded about her busy life as such:

1. She lived in a remote area to save on rental because of inadequate money.
2. Because she lived in a distant area, she had to spend lots of time travelling to work, which reduced her time in skills training.
3. As a result of this, she had to work more or take up more part-time jobs so she could cope with the rising cost of living.
4. Too much time at work had exhausted her physical strength, so she gradually lost the ability for in-depth thinking. She was reduced to a working machine, and hardly had energy for learning and upgrading her skills. She could only perform the same job repeatedly, and earned a meagre income.

Dear friends, this is a vicious cycle. I was startled upon seeing it.

（picture from the Internet）

There are numerous reasons for falling into the trap of busyness. Some of them are because of societal responsibilities rather than personal reasons. Here, we restrict our discussion to personal responsibilities. In reality, most of us aren’t impoverished till we have to work endlessly round the clock to make ends meet. We are also not short of time till such extremes. However, these people’s experiences remind us that insufficient time is a more serious issue compared to the lack of money. Shortage of time will cause people to lose the ability to resolve issues.

How are our lives currently? Are we busy with one meeting after another, working on one project till the next, making incessant phone calls and maintaining lots of interpersonal relationships? After work, we have to cook, attend to the young and elderly, entertain friends, go to the gym and chase drama shows. So where do we have the time to learn, think, pray and plan?

For Christians, such endless busyness will result in more severe issues, such as spiritual upheavals and being distant from God. In such tiring pursuits of life, we hope that God will extend a helping hand but doubt if God will help us, so we are even more downcast.

Dear friends, this is essential: not only must we have free time for rest and entertainment, but we also need to settle down, sort out issues and reflect on our lives. When we fail to put on our thinking caps in quiet moments, we can neither plan in the long run nor have a breakthrough. Thus, someone once said, “There is no room for improvement without respite.” This holds true for our careers, families and spiritual lives.

How do we guarantee that we have such pockets of solitude in our lives?

In our days of youth, we raced against time to complete our homework, played games, slept, contacted our friends and went on spontaneous holidays. We were too preoccupied to talk with our parents. Later in life, we have to strive for our career, make time for dates, look for apartments, prepare for marriage and so on. After marriage, we are so busy with taking care of our children and elderly parents that we sink into depression.

Thus, a lot of people exclaim: Wait till retirement! I will have time to read and study the Word of God, serve God in Christian ministries and teach in underdeveloped areas.

I would say, “It is difficult to do so!” You say all these as you have not retired. But once you’re retired, you will find that you have lots of things to work on. Moreover, you are encumbered with ill health and have to make frequent trips to the hospital, so you will not have more time on your hands. If we can’t find time now, most likely, it will still be the same later in life. If we allow ourselves to be tied down by money, reputation and materialistic things in the world nowadays such that we don’t have time for God, then most likely, we will fall into the worldly trap sometime later down the road.

Dear friends, if it dawns on you that you are too busy and hope to have some free time, we recommend an effective way for you here, that is: using money to redeem time.

You may be dismayed, thinking that you already don’t have enough money and yet, you are told to use money to purchase time. Yes, one such way is to hire someone to take care of some chores. In doing so, we can channel our time to more important areas.

The other way to redeem time is to simplify our lives. Do we really need that much clothes, shoes and socks? Is it a must for our children to go to elite schools? Are our friendships at stake if we attend fewer gatherings? Is there a loss if we don’t go on annual tours with our families?

（picture from the Internet）

Dear friends, if we learn not to spend time and money on unnecessary things, our lives will be simplified. Then we discover that we do not require so much money. Consequently, we don’t need to spend time chasing after money.

Simplified lives free up time for us. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg saved on time for work by wearing the same kind of clothes every day. Today, are we willing to lead simple lives so that we have time for divine appointments with God and make time for pockets of quiet in the hustle and bustle of our lives?

The definition of the ‘working poor’ is not only related to slogging at work. Another reason for the lack in time is because we are afraid to have a void in our lives. We work hard to grab things and resort to consumerism to fill it up. After which, we return to the cycle of earning money. There is also the information consumerism which occurs along the journey to work, at the MRT, in the public transport, during the lunch time break, until we drift off to sleep.

Dear friends, let us ask ourselves honestly: Today, how much of our busyness is compelled by our circumstances? And how much of it is due to the emptiness in our souls?

John Wesley’s mother, Susanna, raised 19 children. Ten of them lived till adulthood. Each time this busy mother flipped over her apron and covered her head in prayer, her children would know not to disturb her.

Today, we aren’t busier than this mother, are we? In this fast-paced generation, we need to think of ways to have some free time and guard our spiritual lives so that we do not fall into the pit of busyness. In such moments of silence, we aren’t distracted by our hand phones and aren’t busy at work or entertaining others. We are in solitude before the presence of God, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us, healing us and renewing our lives.

Today, we’ve considered how we can simplify our lives so we can have more time and space for God.  Tune in next time to “Workplace Strategy” as we continue to explore how we can use our jobs and careers to glorify God.