The pursuit of happiness requires free time | Danielle Roberts

Danielle Roberts (0:00)

Can a democracy survive when its citizens no longer have the time to truly participate in it?

Elise Hugh (0:10)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. I often feel like I don't have enough time, enough time for the people I love, for the things that light me up, for actual rest, and I have a feeling I'm not alone.

If you see a crowded calendar as a personal failing or something to fix with a better system or a new app, writer and work expert Danielle Roberts is here to help you rethink that.

Danielle Roberts (0:40)

We like to call this a time management problem, right? But more Americans are working multiple jobs to survive than ever recorded before. How are you supposed to manage time that's not even yours to begin with?

This goes far beyond a time management problem. It's actually a civil rights issue.

Elise Hugh (0:59)

In her talk, Danielle, who's known to her online community as the anti-career coach, argues that the pursuit of happiness we're all promised is meaningless without the time to actually pursue it and that time has become one of the most unequally distributed things we have. And stick around for our conversation after I sat down with Danielle to dig into this idea further.

Danielle Roberts (1:22)

We design work for imaginary people with unlimited capacity, and that's always going to fail real people with finite energy. So we need to treat ourselves with some compassion and kindness with the way that we show up in work.

Elise Hugh (1:38)

We get into the loss that first made her question the status quo of the workplace. Why she insists rests is infrastructure and not a reward, and a few small things any of us can do to take back more of our time. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk and conversation of the day.

Danielle Roberts (2:06)

So it's exciting and ironic that I'm giving a TED Talk about time in three minutes. But what's more ironic is the Founding Fathers promising us the pursuit of happiness, not the guarantee of happiness, the pursuit. Which I think of as having the freedom to choose how you spend your days, the space and focus to pursue a new passion, or just the ability to be present with the people you love. All of which require something that none of us has enough of. Time. My dad laid tile for 40 years. Do you know what he got for his retirement? Knee surgery.

And he told me, I think I'm going to get another job to keep me busy. Now, if you've ever been out of work, you know how uncomfortable that feels. Now imagine something that feels far worse than that. Never having the time to truly live your life at all. We like to call this a time management problem, right? But more Americans are working multiple jobs to survive than ever recorded before. How are you supposed to manage time that's not even yours to begin with? This goes far beyond a time management problem. It's actually a civil rights issue. Can a democracy survive when its citizens no longer have the time to truly participate in it? And I'm not just talking about the hours, I mean the pace. Moments of connection have been replaced by convenience. We get everything delivered to our doors at record speed. We'll ride share to the airport rather than asking a neighbor. We put productivity on this pedestal to maximize the minutes that we do have access to. The last time we fought for more time and won was over a century ago, when workers marched and bled under a banner that said, eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will.

I love that phrase, what you will. I think of letting the sun hit your face, flipping cars when your sports team wins, like we do here in Philly, or doing absolutely nothing and not feeling guilty about it for once. We cannot optimize the life out of our lives now, betting on a later that isn't promised.

So, I want to propose something new, a time amendment. And it's built on three resolves. First, that time is a civil right, and no one's access to it should be dictated by how much money they make or who they are.

Second, that joy is proof a democracy is functioning the way that it was intended. During the AIDS crisis, Dan Savage said, We buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance is what kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.