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打印18 There is, of course, a gender issue here, too. Advances in household appliances may have encouraged women to take paying jobs: but as we have already noted, technology did not end household chores. As a result, we see appalling inequalities in the distribution of free time between the sexes. According to the Henley Centre, working fathers in the U. K. average 48 hours of free time a week. Working mothers get 14.
這里當然也存在著性別問題。家用器具的更新?lián)Q代或許鼓勵婦女去做有報酬的工作，但正如我們已經(jīng)注意到的，技術發(fā)展并沒有掃除家務雜活。其結果是，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)男女空余時間的分配驚人地不平等。據(jù)亨利中心的調(diào)查，在英國，有工作的父親平均每周有48小時的空余時間。有工作的母親只有14小時。
19 Inequalities apart, the perception of the time famine is widespread, and has provoked a variety of reactions. One is an attempt to gain the largest possible amount of satisfaction from the smallest possible investment of time. People today want fast food, sound bytes and instant gratification. And they become upset when time is wasted.
除去不平等，缺乏時間的感覺也普遍存在，并引起了各種反應。反應之一是試圖投入最少的時間以獲取最大的滿足。如今人們需要快餐，需要電臺、電視臺播放簡短片斷，還要即刻得到滿足。時間一旦被浪費，人們就會很不高興。
20 "People talk about quality time. They want perfect moments," says the Henley Centre's Edwards. "If you take your kids to a movie and McDonald's and it's not perfect, you've wasted an afternoon, and it's a sense that you've lost something precious. If you lose some money you can earn some more, but if you waste time you can never get it back."
“人們談論著質(zhì)量時間。他們需要最佳時光，”亨利中心的愛德華茲說。“如果你帶孩子去看電影或去麥當勞，但度過的時光并不甜美，你浪費了一個下午，感覺就像是你丟失了寶貴物品。錢丟失了還能掙回來，但時間浪費了就再也無法追回。”
21 People are also trying to buy time. Anything that helps streamline our lives is a growth market. One example is what Americans call concierge services -- domestic help, childcare, gardening and decorating. And on-line retailers are seeing big increases in sales -- though not, as yet, profits.
人們還試圖購買時間。任何能幫助我們提高生活效率的事物都有越做越大的市場。美國人所謂的家政服務――做家務，帶孩子，修剪花木，居家裝飾――即為一例。網(wǎng)上零售商在看著銷售額大幅增長――雖然利潤尚未同樣大幅增長。
22 A third reaction to time famine has been the growth of the work-life debate. You hear more about people taking early retirement or giving up high pressure jobs in favour of occupations with shorter working hours. And bodies such as Britain's National Work-Life Forum have sprung up, urging employers to end the long-hours culture among managers and to adopt family-friendly working policies.
對時間匱乏的第三個反應是有關人的一生應該工作多少年的爭論增多。你比過去更常聽到人們談論早早退休，談論放棄壓力大的工作去從事工作時間短的工作。諸如英國全國工作年限論壇這樣的機構像雨后春筍般出現(xiàn)了，敦促雇主終止讓管理人員長時間加班的做法，而采取能適應家庭生活的工作方式。
23 The trouble with all these reactions is that liberating time -- whether by making better use of it, buying it from others or reducing the amount spent at work -- is futile if the hours gained are immediately diverted to other purposes.
所有這些反應的問題在于，把時間解放出來――無論是靠更充分地利用時間，靠購買他人的時間，還是靠縮短工作時間――是沒有意義的，如果贏得的時間又即刻被用于其他目的。
24 As Godbey points out, the stress we feel arises not from a shortage of time, but from the surfeit of things we try to cram into it. "It's the kid in the candy store," he says. "There's just so many good things to do. The array of choices is stunning. Our free time is increasing, but not as fast as our sense of the necessary."
正如戈德比所指出的，我們的緊張感并非源于時間短缺，而是因為我們試圖在一個個時段中塞入過多的內(nèi)容。“就像糖果店里的孩子，”他說，“有那么多美好的事情要做。選擇之多，令人眼花繚亂。我們的空余時間在增加，但其速度跟不上我們心中日益增多的必須做的事。”
25 A more successful remedy may lie in understanding the problem rather than evading it.
更有效的解決方式或許在于去理解這一問題，而不是回避這一問題。
26 Before the industrial revolution, people lived in small communities with limited communications. Within the confines of their village, they could reasonably expect to know everything that was to be known, see everything that was to be seen, and do everything that was to be done.
工業(yè)革命前，人們居住在交通聯(lián)系不方便的小社區(qū)里。在本村范圍內(nèi)，人們自然而然地期望了解該了解的一切，見到該見的一切，做該做的一切。
27 Today, being curious by nature, we are still trying to do the same. But the global village is a world of limitless possibilities, and we can never achieve our aim.
如今，生性好奇的我們?nèi)栽噲D這么做。然而，地球村是一個有著無限可能的世界，我們永遠無法實現(xiàn)自己的目標。
28 It is not more time we need: it is fewer desires. We need to switch off the cell-phone and leave the children to play by themselves. We need to buy less, read less and travel less. We need to set boundaries for ourselves, or be doomed to mounting despair.
我們需要的不是更多的時間：是更少的欲望。我們定要關掉手機，讓孩子們自己玩耍。我們定要少購物，少閱讀，少出游。我們定要在有所為、有所不為方面給自己設定界限，不然則注定會越來越感到絕望。
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