Whose time is it?

A while ago, I told someone what I do in the programme, and they said, 'You're so lucky that your time is your own. My time is not my own. I have [X, Y, Z] responsibilities.'

Firstly, what responsibilities I have, in fact anyone has, has at some level been chosen. Almost without exception, they are not thrust upon a person. The chief exception lies in having dependents, and elderly, frail, or sick relatives are not chosen, at least at the material level. In most (but not all) cases, bearing children is chosen. Pretty much everything else is chosen, if not at the daily level, at the structural level. There is always a different way to live. The feeling of constraint typically reflects underground lines that may not be crossed, in the individual's understanding. Being unwilling to countenance a lower material standard of living in order not to have to work at a miserable but lucrative job is a good example. The unwillingness is hidden below the assumption that a higher material standard of living is necessary. This assumption literally kills people, at the end of a chain of consequences.

But more importantly, I've taken Step Three, and meant it, so my time is emphatically not my own. It is God's. I can not not do what comes down the tubes to me from God. In fact, if I were crimping my activities in behalf of God in favour of material-world projects, then construing myself as hemmed in by such projects, this really would be a demonstration of my time being my own.