Have I mentioned before how I once read something that said people are very willing to sacrifice sleep to get that "maximum value out of life." Ironically, I'm willing to bet that if we got the recommended amount of sleep, we would probably find ourselves enjoying each moment more (at least, morning moments where we don't have to deal with grogginess and "sleepy pain") and there's probably a certain amount of shortening our overall life spans by not getting enough sleep (at least, I'm willing to bet on that last point. . .even if it hasn't been proven. . .could it ever really be proven?)
It would be hard to prove.
I did think about this idea as I wrote that but left it out for clarity. It's certainly some balance, where you put the quantity vs quality equation...
It would certainly be much easier if we could travel to parallel universes.
I agree with you on the balance thing, but I'm still willing to bet that getting enough sleep will improve the quality of life. Now if we could just cut down on working hours of tedium, we could definitely improve the quality of life!
If it wasn't for the working hours of tedium, I wouldn't feel so compelled to cheat the hours of sleep!
Of course, trying to come up with a full subjective answer of "well what would be better, more sleep, or more hours a bit more sleep deprived?" leads to annoying "well what the hell am I doing with my free time anyway?" time issues.
I don't know about you, but most of my "free time" is spent trying to get a degree.
I agree force "leisure time" onto myself Friday and Saturday/Sunday. Ideally, I should force one week night a week on "leisure time," too.
Unfortunately, I'm finding that a lot of personal tediuous chores have been getting in the way of "enrichment" activities during "free time." When that happens a lot, I try to force myself to accept that the dishes won't get done, financial stuff won't get filed, clothes won't be put away, etc. etc. until I'm forced to it.
I've got the opposite problem. If I didn't force myself to put aside tedious things, I wouldn't get any "enrichment" activities done and if I didn't force myself to put the "enrichment" activities aside, I wouldn't do any "leisure" activities.
I can't wait until I get my degree and hopefully move onto freelance writing or can make a career out of my fiction writing (so I can do that 8+ hours a day then have choice of only leisure and tedious chores after hours instead of having a the option career enrichment, too). That very likely won't happen, but one can dream. . .for now, I'll just have to accept that the flights of fancy I go on while writing as those moments of "transcendental" stress relief.