Francois Fenelon on Time

In response to a recent post on time, a friend sent me a quote from Francois Fenelon. Never heard of him? Neither had I. The quote reminds us that human nature hasn't changed much in the last few hundred years. Our lack of time and tendency to waste it is not a digital phenomenon. This is what this French theologian said in the 1600s:

Time is precious, but we do not know yet how precious it really is.  We will only know when we are no longer able to take advantage of it.  Our friends ask for our time as if it were nothing, and we give it as if it were nothing.  Often, our time is our own responsibility; we do not know what to do with it, and we become overwhelmed as a result.  The day will come when a quarter-hour will seem more valuable and desirable than all the fortunes in the universe. 

Liberal and generous in every way, God in the wise economy of his providence teaches us how we should be prudent about the proper use of time.  He never gives us two moments at the same time.  He never gives us a second moment without taking away the first.  And he never grants us that second moment without holding the third one in his hand, leaving us completely uncertain as to whether we will have it.  Time is given to us to prepare for eternity.  Eternity will not be long enough for us to ever stop regretting it if on this earth we have wasted time.

He seems to have taken things more seriously than I tend to. We will regret wasting time for all eternity? Seriously? Sobering.

Deliberate Use of Time

Here's some meta-quoting for you that has me thinking. Scott Young quoting Gary Vaynerchunk responding to a reader asking how to find the time to do what you love:

You work your 9-5, go home, spend 2 hours with the family and then crush it from 7-2. Everyone has time, just stop watching fucking Lost.

Scott posted this a couple weeks ago, but after watching 6 straight episodes of Leverage on Netflix Saturday, I was reminded of it. I don't agree with Gary's specific time slots, but I also don't think the numbers are the point. The point is how we use our time, either deliberately or casually.

This is not my first post on this topic, but it is something that is easy to forget. With a little less sleep, a little more efficient shower, a little less TV, and a lot more intentionality, most of us have an hour or so that we can track down every day. What if I devoted that hour, every day, to doing something meaningful?

One hour today, seven hours this week, thirty hours this month, 350 hours this year.

What could I build? What could I learn? Whose life could I transform?

Leverage is a good show. But I'm not sure it's that good.

Jail Time

It is perhaps an odd fantasy, but sometimes I wish I were in jail. I wish I were locked away from the world not because it needs protection from me, but because I want to escape from it.

In my fantasy, jail is a place where I have all the time I want to read, think, write, sleep, work-out...all the things that I want to do but that are crowded out by petty things like work and cleaning the kitchen.

Jail, of course, comes with a cost, and that cost is far too high a price for a couple more books. It makes me think, though; if I want that extra time to do those other things, why do I not make it happen? Why do I let the world put so many demands on me that I would feel more free in jail than out?

The truth is, jail would put the responsibility in someone else's hands. Without it, my time is my own responsibility. I can play games, watch TV, read, or play with my kids. The walls of the jail must be built by my own discipline. By shutting out what I do not want, I have the freedom to enjoy what I do. By allowing in what I do not want, I trap myself. I alone bear the blame for my choices.

Discipline is hard. Discipline is freedom.

You have no free time

You may think you do, but you have no free time. When we normally talk about free, we mean without cost, unattached, or empty. So Gmail is free, a released balloon is free, and there may be some free space in my closet. None of these apply to time, though, which is never free.

I have already talked some about the cost of time. Time is a scarce resource, and there will always be trade-offs, which are the same as costs. By doing one thing, I pay with the option to do anything else. So time is not Gmail-free.

Time is never disconnected, either. A given hour is always attached to the one before and after it and always lasts exactly 60 minutes. This means that the choices for right now depend on the choices for back then. I cannot, for example, choose lunch at 11:30 in New York and an early dinner 6 hours later in Sydney (given current technology). Time is always attached to the rest of time and is not balloon-free.

Finally, I think when we talk about free time, we intend closet-free. "I am free for lunch" means that my schedule is empty at that time. My schedule is free (empty), I am committment-free (unattached), so I claim that my time is free. Time can never be empty, though. I think the theory of relativity says that time is defined by the thing(s) existing in it, which means that if time were empty, it would cease to exist at all. Therefore time cannot be closet-free.

What do we really mean by free time, then? A free schedule is probably the right meaning. We mean that our time can be used as we see fit, unencumbered by external committments and requirements. I can choose in that moment what to do.

Who cares? Am I not just splitting linguistic hairs? Maybe. However, "free" is a powerful word, and we often let it influence our behavior without meaning to. Having a free schedule can lead us to believe we have cost-free time available to us, which is never true. So the next time you have "free time," consider the cost, make the trade-off, and enjoy it. Just do not think your time is really free.

The economics of attention

Economics is defined as the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Those resources could be oil, education, people, iPods, time, or about anything else. Economics does not care how those resources are allocated, whether by a price-coordinated market economy or a central decision-maker, only that the resources themselves are scarce, and that by using them for one purpose, they are not used for another.

Attention is one of the scarcest resources we have. We can pay attention to one, maybe two things at a time to the exclusion of all else. Therefore, every thing we pay attention to requires us to forgo paying attention to everything else in the world at that moment.

Most of that is easy. No offense intended, but I am fine with not paying attention to your cat for the rest of my life. That still leave a lot of stuff that I do care about, though. Will I watch a movie, write a post, talk with my wife, get some sleep, clean the kitchen, or read a book? All are things I want to do, but my attention is scarce, and I can only choose one right now.

Despite the costs, though, I still rarely attend to where my attention is. I am more likely to go with my gut (which tends toward selfishness, gluttony, and laziness) than with my mind and heart which desire greater things. I can only spend that attention in one place at a time, though, and I can never get it back.

Attention is scarce. Allocate wisely.

The price we pay

Everything has a price, or more accurately, a cost. Do you ever think about that? I rarely do, and it often gets me into trouble, particularly when the costs come at different times, so one thing seems way cheaper than another.

Easy example: credit cards.
Buy now, pay later. The cost of the item hasn't changed from cash, it's just shifted in time plus there's the very real potential additional cost (interest, late charges, etc.) and the hidden cost of processing.

Harder example: fast food.
Eat now, get fat later. A little less clear here. I can pay now in money (fast food is cheap, alternatives being more expensive), inconvenience (my fridge doesn't have a drive-through) and sacrifice (fast food is yummy).

Hardest example: time.
It's running out. It doesn't matter what you're buying or eating, time is ticking away at about 60 seconds per minute, and the end is nearer now than it's ever been. So what choice will I make now? Blog, play with kids, read, play Wesnoth, watch a movie, call a friend? Some of those things are easy. Some take effort. So writing a thoughtful blog post seems more expensive than watching TV. But...

The cost is not only the effort involved. It is also the loss of being able to do anything else with that time...ever. In economics, that's sometimes called an opportunity cost. And while my choice to watch TV right now isn't a big deal, making that choice again and again means that I've given up many hours of learning, thinking, praying, serving, loving, and living. That can get really expensive.

I am by nature a lazy man. But when I think about the full price I pay...maybe I will get off the couch.