In the universe of wasted time, a specific, vast space is occupied by the time we don't dedicate to ourselves. We neglect ourselves, obsessed with the presentist anxiety of having to do "everything right now," and with constantly maintaining high productivity—with family, at work, and with friends—to the detriment of what we need, like oxygen and time for ourselves.
In this self-destructive, all-losing game, women are at the forefront, and today they lack the most necessary achievement: take back your time. Crushed by the triple role of mother (with absent or super busy fathers),daughter (of parents who are often very old and not always self-sufficient), worker(in a world where competition never seems to stop), women risk remaining smash, buried, every day, in this frenzy of ever-shorter time. Not only that. She broods and somatizes, without even realizing it, her feelings of guilt: yesterday the duties of motherhood, today the commitments to not neglect a parent who always asks about her, tomorrow stress. for a professional deadline that brooks no postponement. And in the vortex of this calendar, women lose all their achievements, their (alleged) emancipation, to the point of even wiping out their self-love, the most precious thing we all have within us.
Not having time for oneself is a sacrifice, without any reasonable or useful compensation; it's an erasure of one's identity, extinguished in the ashes of a time that slips through our fingers, without us ever truly managing it; it's a forewarned and repeated loss of vital energy, even for being with others. Indeed, one cannot be happy with others if one can't first be with oneself. And as he explained: Jean Paul Sartre.
In reality, commitments, responsibilities, and deadlines that prevent us from finding time for ourselves often become excuses for other weaknesses. For example, we dislike our own company and desperately seek the company of others. We find no pleasure in being alone, and the nightmare of this feeling of emptiness is addressed with the shortcut of giving up time to invest exclusively in ourselves.
Yet, on paper, we all sense this desire, even if sometimes only in a latent state. A report published in February 2026, and co-authored by Censis and Eudaimon, states that 88,2 percent of employed people believe that "having more time for oneself should be a right." A right we squander, primarily because we struggle to recognize it as such.
To get back on track, you could start with a simple question to ask yourself while looking in the mirror:How much time do you dedicate to yourself? Have you ever thought about it? We have time running out of steam, the rush to finish something by deadline, commitments to meet. And then there's the responsibilities we feel, at work and at home, and the guilt. Everything works against us. Add to that the technological avalanche, those electronic prosthetics called... cellular, PC, tablet, with emails and messages, phone calls and texts, and you realize how much we've lost the sense of intimacy. The search for good company that isn't external to us. Dedicate time to yourself It also means not wasting time, understanding when we are doing useless and superfluous things, which are not they lighten Our lives. And also giving space to our desires, without hesitation, without embarrassment, and above all without guilt.
Make more time for yourselfit's not a selfish choiceIt's not about being closed off from others, detachment, or indifference. On the contrary, only if we manage to enjoy our own company, to make time for ourselves, are we open to accepting relationships. Let's become more open and more tolerantA father who lets himself be overwhelmed by work, the daily hassles of his business, and career anxiety will never achieve the balance needed to fulfill his role as a parent. A partner who is constantly preoccupied with the pursuit of others will never have the energy to nurture the relationship with his partner.
Carving out time for ourselves is essential for gaining clarity, critical thinking, and extending our gaze beyond the ever-challenging confines of the present. We need the simplicity of intimate reflection, the distraction of a moment dedicated to our idleness or our most hidden passion, the pursuit of long-term thinking, also projected into the future.
And making time for yourself is the best medicine against the dark evil of depression and against the bulimia of stress andanxiety. Sometimes, we seek the solution to a problem at hand in an analyst, on a doctor's couch. Let's take our time, then, and with time, let's reclaim the primary human connection we need: the one with our soul.
