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"Some day soon, I'm gonna spend the whole day lying in my hammock under the big pines," my friend sighed. "I'm gonna read trashy novels and eat chocolates and doze and rock all day long."

I said, "That sounds great. Why not today?" That's my usual advice to friends longing for hedonistic retreats: If not now, when? "Oh, I just don't have time today!" she exclaimed.

"Almost everybody has time for what they really want to do." Another observation I regularly make to friends. "It seems to me that almost everybody has the freedom to choose how they spend a good portion of their time. So I have to conclude that what they're doing is what they really want to do. Of course, they may not realize that they're making a choice."

"Well, I don't have that much choice!" she sputtered. "Somebody has to mow the yard. Somebody has to clean the bathrooms and go to the grocery store. Somebody has to make the money around here."

"Twenty-four hours a day?"

"What little bit of time I have left after all those things, I have to devote to other areas of upkeep."

"Such as?"

"Pruning the trees along the driveway. Clearing out the brush from behind the barn. Sorting through my summer clothes and taking the ones that no longer fit to the Goodwill."

"Those are," I said, "important tasks to you."

"They are not! They're just things that have to be done!"

"Says who?"

"Well, they just are!"

Now, this is the point in such conversations when I usually change the subject. So many folks are so resistant to seeing that the tasks they name "important" are tasks they choose for themselves. But that morning, I was feeling a little contentious myself. So I said, "The world won't end if you don't get your summer clothes sorted. On the other hand, you might end if you don't give yourself a little R&R from time to time."

"You just think that because you have so much free time, everybody has that much free time." I could hear the rising petulance in my friend's voice.

"We all have exactly the same amount of time," I said. "My day is neither longer nor shorter than yours."

"But you don't have so many responsibilities." She had switched, by now, into whining mode.

"Not true," I said. "It's just that I have chosen my responsibilities and you've let yours choose you."

"Stop talking like some psycho-pop guru!" she wailed.

"How much sleep did you get last night?" I asked.

Big sigh. Another big sigh. "Look," she said, "I'll set aside a day next week to lie in my hammock."

"Write it on your calendar?"

"Sure. That way I'll do it." I could almost hear her grit her teeth in determination.

"Better than nothing, I suppose," I said. "But in the meantime...?"

"In the meantime, I've got to weed the flowers and haul the recycling. Goodbye." Her tone was a little clipped.

So I took a big glass of iced tea out to the front porch and sat a good long while in my swing, wishing her well and enjoying the sounds of the birds.