Self-Rejection, Self-Sacrifice, Self-Denial VS Egoism, Earthly Pleasures, Hedonism

[Belacqua]

Have you ever been at certain workplaces that ask you to do overtime work outside of work hours on work nights, or during weekends? Whether it’s paid or unpaid, it’s still stealing time that could’ve been used for leisure.

Yes, very much so. I worked at a big art gallery in NYC, and once a month when we installed a new exhibit it was often necessary to work all night to get one show taken down and the other put up on time. Then I worked a while in academia, and that was full of "voluntary" (i.e. required) dinners and meetings and things like that. I took the job because I enjoy what happens in the classroom, but it ended up that class was the least important thing. 

So since then I've taught privately, and sometimes I've annoyed my students by refusing extra-curricular stuff. I make it clear that we start at the start time and stop at the stop time. This is considered especially odd here in Japan, where the tradition of lifetime employment often meant that your work occupied 24/7. 

That aside, don’t you have family members or colleagues or whoever who might try to, for example, make you do something you don’t enjoy just for their benefit? Well they’re entitled to do what they want, but instead of doing it themselves they can try to make you join. Like proselytizing religious family members that demand I still join their weekly worship, worse if they sit near me to make sure I can’t distract myself. If they really enjoy the benefits of religion they could’ve went by themselves without dragging anyone else into it, but some individuals are too unlucky to be born into families like this. What a way to steal someone else’s free time!

Normally I would say that family is different from work, because it's good to share time with people you love. Even if you're just keeping them company during something they're required to do. But I would NOT put up with regular church-going. People who demand that of you should really be more considerate. 

But as I think about it, I've been pretty selfish in this sense -- or maybe we could say I've been protective of my hedonistic time. Because I have organized things to have more self-determined time than most people, probably. 

Overall I agree with you, that unless we're very strict or very lucky, lots of demands will be placed on our time. As we said before, it's OK to sacrifice time if the long-term rewards are worth it -- but sometimes they're not.