Scarcity

I find myself wishing there was more time. Not just for me, but for everyone. Fourteen waking hours in a day feels like a cruel joke—barely enough to survive, let alone live.

We spend those hours rushing, clocking in and out of jobs, scrambling to pay bills, trying to squeeze in errands, responsibilities, obligations. By the time there’s a moment of stillness, the day has already slipped away. Dreams get postponed. Conversations are cut short. Even love feels rushed—reduced to texts, quick meals, fleeting words before sleep.

And the worst part is the constant choice: do I sacrifice sleep or sacrifice time with the people I love? If I work too hard, I lose the chance to see them. If I spend time with them, I lose the sleep my body desperately needs. Twenty-four hours sounds like enough, but when you subtract eight hours of rest—if you’re lucky enough to get it—the time shrinks into nothing. Days blur into weeks, weeks into years, and somewhere in between, life slips past.

What could life be if we had more time? If days stretched long enough to let us breathe, to create, to rest, to actually taste the world? I think of the books I haven’t written, the places I haven’t seen, the laughter I’ve had to put off for “later”—as though later is guaranteed.

The truth is we live in fragments, rationing hours like prisoners ration water. Work devours most of it, leaving scraps for ourselves, our families, our dreams. And even then, it never feels like enough. Retirement is dangled like some distant promise, but by the time it arrives, the body is already too tired to enjoy it.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the hidden cruelty of existence: not that life ends, but that life is never long enough to hold all the things we yearn for. Time is the most ruthless thief, and none of us ever win against it.

Yet in those stolen scraps—those brief moments of joy, connection, or creation—we still find something worth holding onto. Even if it isn’t enough, even if the clock is laughing at us, we still reach for meaning. Maybe that’s the best we can do: fight for more life within the little time we’re given.