Time is Money but Money is Not Time
For some people, money is more valuable than time. I was one of those people before I moved back in with my elders. I’ve since learned that nothing is more precious that the current moment.
We often live with the future at the forefront of mind. We make money to exchange for goods we will need later on. The whole point of money is to place the value of time in storage. Otherwise, we would just go out into the world and barter or collect for ourselves. The problem solved by money is it allows us to store time in an exchangeable, lightweight material that is guaranteed (or at least was) to hold the value agreed upon. All the work-time a blacksmith needed to craft an intricate sword could be traded for a standard and predictable amount, as opposed to three loaves of bread he desperately needed. That bread would be worth the sword if the blacksmith was desperate enough for food and had nothing else to exchange.
What we find out as times runs out is that none of the shit we have matters. All of it has little value compared to time. Time becomes more precious as it becomes more scarce, just like any other resource. However, the obvious difference is that we cannot get anymore time than that which we are given by the Great Almighty. It does not matter how much of our time we store into money if we did not also do something valuable with that time. We have devalued time with our mundane corporate jobs. Therefore, we have also devalued our money. It’s tricky because nothing else works this way.
We can make money from our time while doing something we enjoy and that is valuable squared. For example, we just hired our intern at my dad’s taxidermy shop. She had been working for pay at a drive thru for Chik-fil-A. Even at her young age, she was able to notice that her time was better spent at the shop because she was learning processes that could be applied to a future of working in taxidermy. In her mind, the techniques she was learning were even more valuable than making money or spending time out with friends. She may have gotten some interpersonal skills from working on a team but she is already a really pleasant person to be around so that seems to come naturally. In her eyes, the restaurant job was a waste of precious time.
One thing that our new employee and I have in common is that we were the youngest of our respective broods. Our lives were heavily influenced by our elders, be they brothers and sisters, parents or grandparents. They gave us the perspective to place a great amount value on time. Many young people are frivolous when it comes to time. They are hardly even aware of all the time they have and spend much of their time complaining about time. The lack of awareness only further implies they have no reverence for it. They won’t even take the time to observe themselves.
Living with my grandparents very near is a constant reminder that we have to add value back in to our time to make it worth it.
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
