Our Values Lost Their Value

Is your time being spent or are you spending it?

Time isn’t money.

It can be, of course. You can sell time, trade time, use time to generate more time (in theory). But time is more than money.

Time is life.

Reducing the hours of our days to a fiscal value cheapens them. If your life only equates to money, it was wasted. Spent thoughtlessly. And I wonder if we’ve forgotten how to value the invaluable altogether.

I’m not the first to say this. Seneca wrote “On the Shortness of Life” just to point out people complain about life's brevity because they squander it. Dickens knew true wealth wasn’t in banks. Even the 2006 Adam Sandler movie Click, the surprisingly soulful Boss Baby, and countless self-help books have tried to remind us ambition and accumulation won’t give life meaning.

Still, here we are. Optimizing our schedules for productivity. Perfecting ourselves for longevity. Seeking “high-value” lovers and “high-value” experiences. Till the word value lost its value.

We’ve confused being valuable with living in alignment with our values. And the casualty, if you’re asking me and Dickens and Boss Baby, is love.

I once worried I’d never know what work pleased me. I feared I’d waste my days doing the wrong thing, and I thought the right answer involved my labor. I’d conflated meaning with money and output, and I know I’m not alone.

These days, I don’t fear, I love.

I love my partner. I take care of my children. I write not because it has utility but because it fills me. Yes, I still need to earn a living — and I’m lucky to do that for a company that genuinely tries to put more love into the world — but I don’t equate my worth with how well I perform anymore.

I live for love.

“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality,” wrote midlife Benjamin Franklin in what could’ve been a moment of clarity, but instead, it seeded the now-inescapable cliché – time is money.

Of course it came from Franklin — our “founding playboy,” a man credited with genius but often known for scientific theft, a refusal to vaccinate his child, and a life more oriented toward glory than intimacy. He spent most of his years abroad, estranged from his wife, absent from her deathbed.

When my time comes to a close, I want love nearby. And I want the moments that flash before my eyes to be a flood of knowing glances, laughter around tables, sleepy toddler sighs, and hot sex with my someone who truly sees me.

Before I was partnered, before I even wanted to be a parent, when I sought the answer to the question that plagued me – how ought I spend my time? – and I listened to my heart (not Adam Sandler’s), I knew the answer: a life rich in love was the only life that wouldn’t feel wasted. I just let other voices tell me that wasn’t enough; That time was money.

‘Wake Up America Day’ propaganda, I mean, poster

But slowly, I spent less time making myself valuable — to strangers, to employers, to suitors — and more asking myself whether my life aligned with that value. And now, I spend my time doing just that. Not seeking likes. Not net worth. Not the next rung of the ladder.

And, yes, like Mr. Franklin, I still play. But now, it’s a group activity. What can I say? Marriage suits me.

And, yes, distractions abound. I leak precious time when scrolling. I’ve shrugged away a curious child while enrapt in a story on my screen. I regret these moments, but I don’t worry about imperfection either.

And, yes, some days are hard.

Some days you have to give more time to employment than you'd like. Some days your husband says something stupid. Some days your hormones and last night’s pint of ice cream leave you physically inflamed, which makes you emotionally inflamed, and it's hard to feel lovable, let alone to love.

But it's our job to remember that time is life.

And life is for loving.

And unlike employment, life doesn't have a boss. Your values won’t be prescribed and managed. It's just up to you.

Love is inconvenient. It's not always efficient. It slows us down, makes us vulnerable. It requires presence when productivity would be easier. But it's the only thing that leaves us feeling more whole, not more spent. Love is priceless.

So let yourself love. Every day. And not just big days. ”The time of your life” isn't a time. It can't be saved for weekends and holidays.

It's breakfast time. It’s bedtime. It's this moment.

This is your life. Don't just know what matters. Live it.

Soundtrack:

Tell me:

• What are your values, and how do you live them?

• Have you, too, been thinking about the inverse of ‘family values’ that are used as a weapon instead of love?

• Did you cry at the end of Boss Baby, too?