Benjamin Franklin coined the aphorism time is money, and for years I took it for granted. When one commits 40 hours each week to an organization or to a self-employed job, one expects to earn money as a result. Therefore, the amount of time you spend will impact the money you will make. Fine.
The more I thought about time as money, I realized that it suggests that money is the goal and that how we spend our time is important for primarily monetary reasons. Ben had it backwards. If time = money, then if follows that money = time. Money is extremely useful, no question, but to quote another aphorism, you can’t take it with you.
To build happier, more meaningful lives, you shouldn’t disburse your time in the pursuit of money; you should use your money to better facilitate your time.
Time is money? No, time is far more valuable - Big Think
This concept becomes obvious when reaching the age of retirement. Suddenly you have more time every day but, let’s be honest, fewer future days to spend it. It’s time to flip that aphorism around and realize that the money you’ve earned while working for decades has given you time to rest, volunteer, spend time with friends and family, explore, reinvent yourself, or learn new things.
It is a tremendous gift.
We speak about spending time in the same way we do about spending money, but there is a difference. Money can be earned, invested and replaced, but time is a resource that can never be recovered. When our heads hit the pillow at night, that day is done, never to be repeated.
How we spend our time is just as important as how we spend our money.
I did a little bit of research on the beginning of time, which was too much for my unscientific brain. (See this article for an example.) My mind works far better theologically, so I’m sticking with biblical and many theologians’ conclusion that God created both space and time, and that perhaps time came into existence when God created day and night on the first day of creation. Whether that was one 24-hour day or millennia is immaterial as far as I’m concerned; the point is that God created it.
The history of money is interesting as well. Communities in ancient days traded food, livestock, and other necessities to survive. Genesis, the events of which happened around 2000 BC, mentions Abraham paying 400 shekels of silver for a burial plot for his wife, Sarah, meaning they had come up with a unit, the shekel, to measure value. Coins and paper money followed and were developed over the centuries. And now, we have credit cards, digital currency, and cryptocurrency.
Money is a human creation, part of the filling of the earth that God commanded us to do. We need a way to purchase necessities and to transfer wealth, and money has been created and transformed over the years into the sophisticated monetary system we now have. However, like any human creation, it can be misused. Money was not intended as a means to accumulate wealth for wealth’s sake. On the contrary, God wants us to use our wealth for the benefit of others.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10
Time, on the other hand, is a God given resource, for none of us, even the young, know how many more days we will live. Every day is a gift, and I admittedly don’t often wake up with that truth in mind. Instead, I simply go through the day’s to-dos. That’s fine if my list is made up of tasks that were given to me by God, but that’s not always the case.
Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:10
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I rarely thought about the value of my time or what it meant to spend it wisely. Life was just beginning, and I felt like I had all the time in the world. Then life got busy. While raising a family, learning new skills, and developing relationships my to-do list wasn’t my own. I simply reacted to responsibilities, opportunities and commitments.
Now that my children are all productive adults, my to-do list is more under my control. There are still plenty of responsibilities, opportunities and commitments, in fact there may be more, but now I have lived more days, I am numbering them more correctly, and trust that I have a bit more wisdom. And I have more time.
Most of us at this stage have our finances under control, but how to spend our time might be a new dilemma for us. Suddenly, we have control of our time, and now we must figure out how to spend it.
The first and most important thing is to ask God for direction. If you believe that he created you for a purpose, that he still has good works for you to do, and that he will let you know what those are, ask him. Take your time. Pray. Wait. This will bring you closer to him as you seek his wisdom, and you will have a better sense of how to best use your time.
Then consider, even rank, your priorities, and ask yourself if you are spending your time on your high priority initiatives. If not, adjust. Our time is limited.
There was never a dawn, regardless how beautiful or promising, that did not grow into noontime. There was never a noon that did not fall into afternoon. There was never an afternoon that did not fade toward evening. There never was a day yet that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night.
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
As you reimagine retirement, thank God that he has given you the resources to retire. Thank him for the gift of another day, more time, and ask him to teach you how to use your time wisely.
Thanks for highlighting the value of time and the importance of how we use our time - especially with the gift of retirement! I shared your article with several others. Your posts are impactful!
I’ve been reading Anam Cara since the summer! Love it!