I've never liked the phrase, "Time is money." We all have a finite amount of time on Earth and, like money, we can spend time or waste time, save time or invest time. So maybe the phrase should go, "Time is like money." But to equate the two is to devalue time, because money is an artificial construct.
There was a time when there was no money. There was nothing but time, and it was always free. Our time had value when we used it to get food or make love. That was all we were about as we evolved as proto-humans. Food and sex, like most animals. But, eventually, we started to trade things we did with our time for things others did with their time. I spent my time hunting this deer which I'll trade you for those wool blankets you made. We had to decide how much hunting equaled how many blankets. Things and time began to have value.
Then our symbolic powers evolved enough to say that a symbolic object such as a coin was worth a given amount of work or goods. Looking back through history we can see that monetary value is arbitrary because a dollar now is not what a dollar once was, or a pound or a shekel or what have you. Once, a day's work may have been worth a dollar, but that dollar would buy you a lot of things. If you worked 8 hours and slept 8 hours that left you with 8 hours of free time. If the work was worth a dollar, then the time must have been worth a dollar. But you weren't earning a dollar for it, so we considered it free time. We were also free from the enslavement that our jobs might have been. 8 hours to be free. It was as if we had a gift of time.
Until recently I felt as if I had very little free time. My work hours were such that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, I got home too late to use any time. I had Thursday off, but I was teaching a class in the middle of the day and the evening's were devoted to couples time, which, while pleasant, was not free. My Saturday off went all too quickly, because that was when I painted and wrote and made music and worked out and went shopping and did laundry, and there was always so much to get done, that the time never felt free and I always ran out of it before I could do all that I wanted to do.
Now, all of a sudden I find myself in a new job which has an odd schedule, and I find myself inundated with time. I deliver express mail in the morning and then have 4 1/2 free hours until I have to do the reverse route in the afternoon. I stop at a truck stop, so my options are limited, but the time is such a gift! I read a bit, study for the MCAT because I still have the idea of medical school in my head, have my lunch, and then I write. I've already finished the second draft of a novel I'd been working on for a long time. And now I'm working on my philosophy book, writing down all the things I think about the process we call life. I'm not sure what its eventual fate will be, but I realized that I've been in conversation with myself about the nature of reality all my life and I've come to certain conclusions. But they just exist in my head. I feel like they will never have a value unless they're expressed and I guess writing them down is the first step. If I just die and never express my thoughts then what was the good of thinking them? So it feels like I'm getting paid to have a few hours of structured writing time 6 days a week. That's like a dream!
And then, I'm home by 5:30 or six every day, giving me even more free time. I'm finding that I can now choose what to do with my time - a luxury that I don't remember ever having. Time to me is worth so much more than money, so I feel like a rich man. A person needs time to reflect. When we are so busy with life that we don't have a moment to even appreciate time, we become mechanical. I see so many people who live for their jobs because they can't see how to survive otherwise. And then they squander whatever little time they have. Stop right this moment and be aware of it. Take in your surroundings. Feel the air, hear the sounds, really look at where you are. Check in with your body, your breathing, your pulse. Calm your nervous energy for a moment. Relax. Just for a moment. Doesn't it feel right? That moment can be so valuable - worth so much more than money. It is beyond price. That time you just took is my gift to you. It is a gift you can claim again and again. And it is free. A moment of real awareness is worth many days of hard work. If you step out of the stream of time for just a moment and appreciate all of creation, you will be rich too.
Money is just an idea. But free time is worth so much more.
