Time is not Money

Hey Amanda,

I've been thinking a lot lately about time and money.

It's probably just because I'm unemployed, or  more accurately unpaid, but it  bothers me when people value their time at the rate they could be paid. For instance I had a conversation with a doctor about service projects, and he said that they were a waste of his time. Instead of sorting cans himself, he could instead pick up an extra shift at the hospital and donate his earnings to pay for a dozen people to sort cans.

I've thought a lot about that conversation. Obviously the numbers of his argument are sound. A high-wage earner has a bigger impact donating wages than labor. However, I have two beefs with this accountingof time. One, this assumes more hours working equals more income. For anyone who gets paid by salary or per product/project, this isn't true.

(Seanwes Hand Lettering)

And it also isn't true for anyone who can't pick up extra hours easily. I know very little about how doctors get paid, but I'm assuming you can't just pick up one additional hour. You'd have to commit to working 12 additional hours (if it's anything like nurses shifts) or however many hours consist a shift, which make adding one extra hour of work difficult to casually add.

Ultimately if we're using this type of cost-benefit calculation, the hour of your time from 9am to 10 on a Saturday is only worth what someone is willing to pay you at 9am on a Saturday. If you can't get employment for that hour doing something else, under this calculation, your time is free, and any money you save/earn in that hour is bonus.

Second beef, your time is not pro-rated. Some hours of your life will have a much higher price than others. Under the right circumstances, any of us would pay many times what we could be paid to be an hour early. There is also emotional and social value in unemployed hours. Having lunch with a friend is not interchangeable with getting a twenty dollar gift card just because you could earn twenty dollars in that hour you spent with your friend. There are 168 hours in week, but it will literally kill you if you were paid a million dollars to work all of them. I had a plant science professor once go on an tangent about "No job will ever be prestigious enough that it's better than having  a family that's happy you're home." Probably the most memorable thing I heard all semester.

In essence, money is only valuable inasmuch as it give you time to enjoy. If you were in prison but had a million dollars in the bank, I wouldn't consider you well-off. Time is not money. Money is time.

I'm sure you've seen those stupid Buzzfeed articles: "Ten Things I Wish I knew in my 20's" and the like. All of them talk a lot about finding a career you love. Do what you love, the money will follow--that kind of platitude-heavy advice.  I think for most of us, that's actually a really, really terrible idea.

Da Vinci armored seige tower...it's not the Mona Lisa
(Source)

Do whatever gives you the time and money to do what you love. Few people have a single driving passion, and fewer people can easily get paid for it.  If you look through the history of great innovators and artists, they were either aristocracy (an unlikely source of 21st century wealth)  or they had a day job. Leonardo daVinci designed seige engines for money, although it clearly wasn't what he was best at.  Leeuenhoek fathered microbiology, but he never got paid to do it. He sold drapes.

When innovators were employed by their passion, they didn't start that way. Wilbur Wright really really loved gliders. But he ran a bike shop before he could run a plane shop.

There is nothing wrong with settling for a career that's good enough. It's just what you get paid for, it's not your life.  I guess, it's the equating of those two that really gets me. You'll still be a valuable human being when you retire.

Don't take yourself so seriously. Eat a snowcone. Practice introducing yourself without mentioning your employment.; it's good exercise.

-Stephanie,