Time isn’t Money

Well I’ve done it. I’ve become what I hate. Somebody please kill me.

Once upon a time, I made fun of silly on-demand services. Who on earth is too lazy to do laundry? Or buy their own food??

People with more money than time.

It used to be that income was my scarcest resource. I would jump at the prospect of free food. I got out and met people. But now someone else owns 65% of my waking hours and I’m too tired.

It’s okay, I get free food at work. My employer all but shovels it into my mouth for me.

Time is now my scarcest resource. When resources are scarce, people become hoarders.

Waiting in line or traffic makes me angry — other people are stealing my limited resources. They’re practically reaching into my pocket and taking my money, except I would rather they just do that. Just don’t take my time.

I moved into a cinderblock of an apartment to cut down my commute. I am happy I did that.

I furnished the apartment with cheap shit off Amazon and Walmart. I don’t have time to browse thrift shops or comb Craigslist. I snuck online orders while pretending to code.

I had to do it at work because I don’t have internet at home. My servers are still busy, um, testing the security of my neighbors’ wireless networks.

It’s not that I have a problem paying Comcast $50 a month. They built a good monopoly, they earned it. It’s that I don’t want to spend half a day waiting for installation people. Time is money.

A bad thing happens when people are conditioned to interchange money and time. They believe that money can also replace the things that time represents. Like, I’m too busy to pay attention to my wife but maybe if I buy her expensive crap she’ll love me anyway.

I used to volunteer at the VA hospital. Now, how would I take time off work? Maybe I’ll donate some money and they can figure out their own resource allocation. Money buys distance from other people’s problems.

Anyone who has spent time at a hospital has seen this: As an elderly parent enters a terminal stage of decay, it never fails that the offspring who were largely absent for many years fly in at the last second and make extravagant medical demands to keep the patient alive.

Time’s almost up. Maybe if you throw enough money at the situation it will bury the fact that you suck as a human.

So I traded time for money. I hate myself.

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