"High pay is highly rewarding," Kolbert writes, and in a winner-take-all economy, we're motivated to put in extra-long hours to, well, win. Maybe people who don't like leisure are richer in the first place because many of them just like working more, and a permanent sense of busy-ness is the psychological price they agree to pay.
If people choose to work extra hours, even though they don't need to, are they unwillingly busy? No. They're just replacing one unnecessary, trivial use of time with another. If one American spends a few hours in the evening watching a basketball game on television, while another spends a few extra hours on his job when he has no need for working those extra hours, both are willingly involving themselves in those activities rather than better alternatives.
Americans aren't neglecting God, the church, apologetics, and other important matters because they're unwillingly busy. They're neglecting those matters because they're willingly busy with less important things, often things that are inherently immoral.
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