When Roy Austin went on his first wildlife trip back in 2018, his only goal for the leisurely vacation was to catch sight of some African wildlife in its natural habitat—but he ended up finding something much more meaningful. He was most captivated (迷住) by the people he met in rural Kenya—particularly at the Amboseli Primary and Secondary School in Amboseli National Park.

In addition to befriending many of the students and teachers, Austin was surprised to learn how difficult it was to get books and school supplies for the children. “In rural Kenya, the government does not build school buildings. You either build it yourself or raise money to have it built,” says Austin. “A teacher was asked if they had a library. She replied, ‘ No, but we would love to have a library.’ That stuck in my mind.”

When Austin eventually returned to his home in Bluffton, South Carolina, he launched Libraries for Kids International. Since starting the charity, Austin has managed to ship more than 1000 books to 11 schools across Kenya and Tanzania. He sends the books through the post office rather than FedEx to keep the shipping costs down.

As it continues to collect books and donations for additional shipments, Austin says that the charity is now helping to move a shipping container of 22, 000 books from Atlanta to Kenya. In the future, the philanthropist (慈善家) hopes to start sending donations to South America as well.

“Many people told me that it can’t be done. It’s too expensive to ship books, and they will disappear going through customs,” Austin says. “However, every worthwhile project will have problems and barriers. If you focus on the problems, you will never start. On the contrary, if you focus on the aim and solve the problems as they arise, most anything is possible.”

Feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list can certainly make you unhappy, but new research suggests that more free time might not be the magic elixir many of us dream it could be.

In a new study released last week, researchers analyzed data from two large-scale surveys about how Americans spend their time. Together the surveys included more than 35,000 respondents. The researchers found that people with more free time generally had higher levels of subjective well-being — but only up to a point.

People who had up to two hours of free time a day generally reported they felt better than those who'd had less time. But people who had five or more hours of free time a day generally said they felt worse. So ultimately the free time "sweet spot" might be two to three hours per day.

Most people know that being too busy can cause stress. However, no evidence shows more free time will actually bring people happiness. For example, some adults struggle with the "retirement blues, "which can be due to lacking stimulation(刺激)and structure.

Part of finding the "sweet spot" has to do with how people spend the extra time they have, the researchers behind the new study argue.

They conducted several smaller online experiments. In one they asked participants to imagine having 3.5 to seven free hours per day. They were asked to imagine spending that time doing "productive" things (like exercising) or to imagine doing "unproductive" activities (like watching TV) Study participants believed their well-being would suffer if they had a lot of free time during the day—but only if they used it unproductively.

Of course, what feels "productive" is up to you. If watching two hours of "Real Housewives" in your free time increases your happiness, you should do that. Even some traditionally productive or purposeful activities like walking, knitting, reading or cooking, which helps burn stress and put people in a state of flow, can be easy and beneficial.