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.
这里当然也存在着性别问题。家用器具的更新换代或许鼓励妇女去做有报酬的工作，但正如我们已经注意到的，技术发展并没有扫除家务杂活。其结果是，我们发现男女空余时间的分配惊人地不平等。据亨利中心的调查，在英国，有工作的父亲平均每周有48小时的空余时间。有工作的母亲只有14小时。
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，缺乏时间的感觉也普遍存在，并引起了各种反应。反应之一是试图投入最少的时间以获取最大的满足。如今人们需要快餐，需要电台、电视台播放简短片断，还要即刻得到满足。时间一旦被浪费，人们就会很不高兴。
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."
“人们谈论着质量时间。他们需要最佳时光，”亨利中心的爱德华兹说。“如果你带孩子去看电影或去麦当劳，但度过的时光并不甜美，你浪费了一个下午，感觉就像是你丢失了宝贵物品。钱丢失了还能挣回来，但时间浪费了就再也无法追回。”
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.
人们还试图购买时间。任何能帮助我们提高生活效率的事物都有越做越大的市场。美国人所谓的家政服务――做家务，带孩子，修剪花木，居家装饰――即为一例。网上零售商在看着销售额大幅增长――虽然利润尚未同样大幅增长。
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.
对时间匮乏的第三个反应是有关人的一生应该工作多少年的争论增多。你比过去更常听到人们谈论早早退休，谈论放弃压力大的工作去从事工作时间短的工作。诸如英国全国工作年限论坛这样的机构像雨后春笋般出现了，敦促雇主终止让管理人员长时间加班的做法，而采取能适应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.
所有这些反应的问题在于，把时间解放出来――无论是靠更充分地利用时间，靠购买他人的时间，还是靠缩短工作时间――是没有意义的，如果赢得的时间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，我们的紧张感并非源于时间短缺，而是因为我们试图在一个个时段中塞入过多的内容。“就像糖果店里的孩子，”他说，“有那么多美好的事情要做。选择之多，令人眼花缭乱。我们的空余时间在增加，但其速度跟不上我们心中日益增多的必须做的事。”
25 A more successful remedy may lie in understanding the problem rather than evading it.
更有效的解决方式或许在于去理解这一问题，而不是回避这一问题。
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.
工业革命前，人们居住在交通联系不方便的小社区里。在本村范围内，人们自然而然地期望了解该了解的一切，见到该见的一切，做该做的一切。
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，生性好奇的我们仍试图这么做。然而，地球村是一个有着无限可能的世界，我们永远无法实现自己的目标。
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.
我们需要的不是更多的时间：是更少的欲望。我们定要关掉手机，让孩子们自己玩耍。我们定要少购物，少阅读，少出游。我们定要在有所为、有所不为方面给自己设定界限，不然则注定会越来越感到绝望。
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