Sunday, February 9, 2014

Time Commitment of a Good Latter Day Saint

I thouroghly believe that if we do the little things in that we are told to do at church, we are happier in life. What does it mean to do the little things? Let me list them out for you.

Daily: (20 minutes)
Prayers (Morning, Evening, Meals... always): 10 minutes
Reading Scriptures: 10 minutes

Weekly: (6 hours)
Church: 3 hours
Home Evening: 2 hours
Calling: 1 hour

Monthly: (8 hours)
Home/Visiting Teaching: 2 hours
Being Home/Visiting taught: 1 hour
Temple attendence: 3 hours
Ward activity: 2 hours

I know that I am ignoring travel time, and this would be doubled for a bishop, but for an average member this should be a good estimate.

Here is a break down of a year: 365 days, 52 weeks, or 12 months. Check out these calculations.

Total Yearly = (Daily * 365) + (Weekly * 52) + (Montly * 12)
Total Yearly = (.33hr * 365) + (6hr * 52) + (8hr * 12)
Total Yearly = (120.45hr) + (312hr) + (96hr)
Total Yearly = 528.45hr

Average Montly = (Total Yearly / 12)  = 44hr
Average Weekly = (Total Yearly / 52) = 10hr
Average Daily = (Total Yearly / 365)  = 1.5hr

I guess that an hour and a half daily might sound pretty intense, but is it really for your happiness. Lets take a quick look at percentages because I like those better.

Yearly Percent = (528.45 / 8670) = 6.10%

What that means is if you give up 6% of your life, your are a devout member, and most likely will be happy. That 6% might actually seem kind of steap, but it isn't even a 10th, and we know when we pay our tithing, God moves mountains to make that 90% more useful than the 100% would be otherwise, so why can't he do the same thing for our time.

Let me end by mentioning some other yearly percentages:
33.67% - Sleep (8 * 365 / 8670)
23.99% - Work (8 * 5 * 52 / 8670)
18.10% - TV = (4.3 *  365 / 8670) (source)
21.72% - Digital= (5.16 * 365 / 8670) (source)

In conclusion most Americans spend three times as much time daily watch TV that it would take to be a great member of the church. That is really sad. I hope that I can give up a bit of internet or tv time to be a good healthy member of the church.









1 comment:

  1. Cool, I like the breakdown. You're right, sometimes people are very reluctant to give "their time" when in reality it is very little and impacts us so positively.

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