Becoming A Master Of The Time-scarcity Demon : Zen Habits
Greed and time scarcity
The problem isn’t that we have too little time — we all get the same amount of time each day and each week. It’s the exact right amount of time, because it’s all there is.
It’s possible that we have too many things to do. But actually the real problem is that we want to do too much in the time we have. The amount of things we have to do is not usually the difficulty, but rather that given how much time we have (let’s say a day), we want to cram too much into it.
We want more and more, and are not satisfied with what we’re actually able to do in the time we have.
We want more, and what we have is never enough. It’s this lack of being satisfied that is the real problem. We reject our experience, and want more.
In Buddhism, this is called “greed.” I don’t love this term because it feels judgmental, but it’s simply that we’re not satisfied with what we have, we want more.
The answer to greed, according to Buddhism, is generosity. Which is to say, to see the amazingness in what we already have. To see the profound beauty in the experience we’re having right now. To love what is.