“Time is money.”

“Time is money” is the well-known quote attributed to Ben Franklin that underscores how important it is to stay on mission and to avoid wasting the time that we have. And anyone listening to the productivity gurus knows that time is a scare resource. But can you own time like you own money? Seeing time as our most precious possession may seem like a helpfully motivating point of view, but if we’re not careful, it can actually stunt our ability to grow in character.

The Risk of Prizing Time

Focusing on the limited amount of time that we all share in a day, week and month is helpful to a point. Valuing time can motivate productivity or carving out time for family or hobbies. All good things.
The problem with the mantra is the idea that our time belongs to us at all. It can be agonizing when we’re confronted with the relentless march of time, and it can feel that something is being taken away from us. It’s a natural reaction to want to hang onto it at all costs. Just ask Pink Floyd.

Our old pal and fictional devil Screwtape identified this fallacy as a tried and true path to sabotaging the process of building virtue for us humans. In his letter to junior tempter Wormwood, he advises, “Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury” and, “nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening)… that throws him out of gear.”

When we view our time as our own to spend, it prevents us from being humble, much to the delight of opponents of virtue like Screwtape and Wormwood. It can lead to us being stingy and selfish when opportunities to serve other people arrive.

A Different Kind of Miser

“Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.” Screwtape advises. “Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.”
It’s true that time is precious and not to be spent frivolously. It’s also true that time is a gift that we receive every day. Tomorrow is promised to no one.
Screwtape concludes, “…all the time the joke is that the word ‘mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything.”

Productivity Grinders vs. Servant Leaders

In the long term, the human survival rate drops to 0% and we can’t take anything with us. When we view time as our own to dole out as we see fit, it puts us in the wrong position to be humble, and to receive our gifts with a grateful heart. When we instead recognize that we’re all in the same boat and equally unable to fight the tide of time, it puts us in the correct posture to get over ourselves and frees us to be generous with those around us.