This is more distracting than I thought

30 minutes might be considered too long for a lunch break considering I’m not cooking today but this is a problem of self-control.

I, like many people and maybe even you (?), set goals for myself. To finish lunch in 30 minutes is a bit of a poor one since it involves eating, typing and hopefully watching some Youtube.

My question is if lunch is a necessity.

I could probably go without eating till dinner, do work in this half an hour that is spent here but, should I?

Does this question’s answer change depending on the situation?

Should people be made to forgo what they enjoy for the sake of things like work?

You could argue it both ways or even “Well if you organised your time well then you wouldn’t have this situation since you’d be able to complete your work and do everything you like.”

Thing is, people have unlimited wants and limited time.

Does anyone actually want to work?

I do not think so.

People work for money, they study to learn for the sake of grades, grades to work, work for money, money to live and survive, maybe a little pleasure.

No one is ‘making’ a person forgo pleasure for work, and no one can except yourself.

Ah, looks like I wrote myself into a circle.

Let’s ignore this and move on with another question.

If I don’t complete my goal, maybe I don’t deserve lunch.

How about that? Like a gig worker does not get paid without completing their work, a student who does not finish enough homework voluntarily passes lunch in favour of doing homework.

This is actually a legitimate strategy in some school systems where a student misses recess to finish homework. It need not be forced by an educator, is my point, for the effect to be a hungry student and maybe-completed homework.

Instead of food though, what about sleep? Time with friends? Time with family? Time that could be spent on the community.

Well, that, of course, sees students as altruistic citizens of the world. You can think your own way, but what is okay for someone to sacrifice in exchange for another thing?

In Economics (revision for which I have yet to do because there’s Math) we learn about Opportunity Cost.

Now, who decides that goal? You do, of course, as a student. So if you finish a sentence of an essay you can eat lunch. Is that equal, you decide, right?

(Somewhere in you there’s something that is uncomfortable with that idea.)

A sentence of an essay is not a worthy-enough goal for a period of time long enough for lunch, maybe.

Why do you think this way..?

The pressure of people around you who will go to school on Monday having not eaten, not slept, not done anything but work and actually finished the work set out?

Now, I’m not saying that the workload we have is ridiculous, I fully intend to complete my History, Economics, Literature, Math and MT homework, but I sometimes question the price.

I’m not sure if I should be asking you to, either.

Sorry, remind me why people even read these.

I have 15 minutes left to lunch and I confess to having lost my appetite to the growing dread in my gut as the clock ticks down to tomorrow.

Then I remember that there are 14 hours to 3 a.m. I have 17 hours if I do not sleep today.

Does that mean I get to have an extended lunch to eat my noodles strand by strand?

–

I like to think that everyone has a

choice no matter what.
The reason people have fewer

and fewer choices is because of their own

circumstances.
More importantly, it would be the consequences of

their choice.
Everyone has a choice.
Reasoning with yourself,

till the point where you appear to have only one choice,

is also a choice.