Why Time Isn’t Money

Why Time Isn’t Money
Rabbi Geoffrey Mitleman

We often tend to use the same language for time as we use for money. We “spend” it. We “save” it. We “buy” it. We use those same words because both time and money are very precious resources to us.

But while money is always money (the same 20 dollars can used to buy food, movies, or in my case, a new book), time is a little more nuanced.

In fact, the Greeks had two different words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos was the quantitative sense of time. It could be measured and dissected, and most importantly, was undifferentiated.

Kairos, in contrast, was the qualitative sense of time. It was psychological, how we felt time, and it reminded us that not every moment was exactly the same — some moments were more powerful, more important and more holy than others.

To phrase it another way, if chronos is the date of your wedding, kairos is your wedding day.

So time is paradoxical. Sometimes we look at it through our daily or weekly schedules, placing all our obligations and opportunities into our calendar. When we look at time in this way, it is something we use, and has value only to the extent that it can help us achieve other goals. But sometimes we look at time through the lens of what is most special and important in our lives. When we look at it in this way, it is something we experience, and has value in and of itself.

Our view of money, however, doesn’t have this challenge. Money doesn’t have value in and of itself — its power comes in what it allows us to do. The question then is, are we using our money to help us do what we truly want to be doing?

Happy MoneyIn the new book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton outline the different ways we can use money to increase our well-being. While money doesn’t buy happiness (at least not directly), if we use our money correctly, we can find opportunities for more joy and satisfaction in life. And one of the primary ways we can do that is to use money to buy time — but it has to be a specific type of time.

We all are busy with our lives, and we often think that buying a new time-saving gadget will make our lives better because it will “save us time.” Instead, these new gadgets often force us to do more work in the same amount of time. But that’s because when we are looking to “be more efficient,” we are looking for more chronos time.

What Dunn and Norton argue is that we should use our money to find ways to experience kairos time. So, for example, how can we make sure that we have a date night with our spouse? How can we strive to volunteer with organizations that give our lives meaning? As Dunn and Norton explain:

Transforming decisions about money into decisions about time has a surprising benefit. Thinking about time — rather than money — spurs people to engage in activities that promote well-being, like socializing and volunteering. In a 2010 study, more than three hundred adults completed a simple task designed to activate the concept of either time or money. One group unscrambled sentences related to time, such as “sheets the change clock” (possible answers: “change the sheets” or “change the clock”). Another group unscrambled sentences related to money (“sheets the change price”). Afterwards, everyone decided how to spend the next twenty-four hours. Individuals who unscrambled sentences related to time were more inclined to socialize and engage in “intimate relations” and were less inclined to work. Those who unscrambled sentences related to money showed just the opposite pattern, reporting enhanced intentions to work and diminished intentions to socialize or have intimate relations.

Why? Time and money promote different mind-sets. We view our choices about how to spend time as being deeply connected to our sense of self. In contrast, choices about money often lead us to think in a relatively cold, rational manner. Focusing on time frees people to prioritize happiness and social relationships. Even a simple sentence-unscrambling task is enough to induce these different frames of mind. (Dunn and Norton, 74-75)

In Judaism, the paradigmatic kairos time is Shabbat. During the six days of the work week, we are supposed to be productive, to be working hard in order to support ourselves and our family. But on Shabbat, we are told to take a break. To rest. To be with friends. To be with family. To go for a nice, long walk. To read and to learn. To pray. To be reminded that time can be special.

Indeed, while every dollar we earn is the same, not every moment in life is the same. And while we can always potentially gain more money, we never gain more time. While you can always potentially get a refund on your money, once your time is spent, it’s gone.

So let’s make sure we’re spending it wisely.

Rabbi Geoff Mitelman is the Executive Director of Sinai and Synapses. Published with the author’s permission.