Time Poverty: The Silent Curse You’re Probably Carrying

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The funny thing about poverty is that it doesn’t just come with an empty wallet. It can come with a full calendar.

Welcome to the modern curse we call time poverty—where your hours are nickel-and-dimed by work, obligations, and errands until you’ve got nothing left for yourself.

And don’t let the apps, planners, and productivity hacks fool you. This isn’t just about being disorganized. This is systemic. It’s cultural. It’s the way society keeps us exhausted and compliant.

What Is Time Poverty?

It’s that constant gnawing sense that there aren’t enough hours in the day. Not because you’re lazy, but because you’re over-leveraged. Between the job, the house, the kids, the commute, the endless digital pings, and the unpaid labor nobody thanks you for—your “free” time gets boiled down to a few scraps.

Sound familiar? Yeah. That’s time poverty.

The Toll It Takes

  • On your body: You can’t outrun exhaustion, no matter how much coffee you drown yourself in.

  • On your mind: Anxiety thrives where silence should be.

  • On your spirit: Forget magic, prayer, or creativity—when was the last time you felt unrushed enough to listen to your gods, your ancestors, or your own damn soul?

This isn’t just inconvenient. It’s theft. Time poverty steals the sacred and replaces it with chaos.

Why We’re Here

Time poverty isn’t an accident. It’s baked in.

  • Long work hours and unpredictable schedules.

  • The “second shift” of housework and caregiving.

  • Hustle culture whispering you’re never enough unless you’re grinding.

  • Convenience traps (delivery, fast food) that cost money and keep you poorer, too.

It’s the oldest trick in the book: keep the people too tired to rise up.

What To Do About It

You can’t magic more hours into the day. But you can reclaim what’s already yours.

  • Audit your hours. Where are they bleeding out? Plug the holes.

  • Say “no” without apology. The world won’t end because you skipped a committee meeting.

  • Share the load. No one wins if you play martyr.

  • Protect your sacred hours. Mark them on the calendar like you would a doctor’s appointment.

And here’s the kicker: the fix isn’t just personal. It’s political. Until we fight for fair wages, shorter workweeks, and affordable childcare, time poverty will remain the default.

The Witch’s Angle

Witchcraft requires presence. You cannot hear the whisper of the Horned One if you’re half-asleep scrolling on your phone between shifts. You cannot build power when every ounce of you is wrung out for someone else’s profit.

Magic is the art of attention. Time poverty robs you of that attention. It keeps you from your altar, your spirits, your craft. And if that doesn’t make it a curse, I don’t know what does.

So the next time someone says “we all have the same 24 hours in a day”?
Light a candle for their ignorance and keep walking. Some of us are busy fighting to reclaim our hours from a system built to waste them.

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