Matters That REALLY Matter—Conversation with Richard Dinwiddie

Most of us give away our priceless lives far too easily.

When Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract in 1762, his subject was what we call “The Consent of the Governed.” That is, the political dynamic which posits that the people give up some of their individual freedom to a government of their own free will in return for political and social stability. This social contract concept plays out in many areas of life, those numerous situations that are characterized by an exchange of one’s time, i.e., part of their life, to another person or organization in return for some perceived benefit. In my life, this would include areas that could be defined as spiritual, educational, musical, various other kinds of professional, and personal.

For example, one of many parts of my life is that of a college professor. My students enroll in my classes of their own free will. They pay tuition and buy books with money earned in exchange for someone’s time and effort. They use their earned resources to get to the class site or to engage in an online class. They surrender a portion of their lives for the length of the class period to receive the information or training for which they came and for which they paid their tuition.

The common fallacy is to conceive of the time involved as being the length of the class. But, how much time actually is involved? The real time is the number of life-hours being bartered. Say there are 40 students in the class (although my online classes usually number 65-100 – or more). To get the actual time, multiply the number of students by the length of the class, which in this case is about an hour, resulting in 40 person-hours, or an aggregate of 2,400 minutes actually entrusted into my hands. It follows, then, that if I waste 5 minutes, I waste a total of 200 minutes of real-life time. The phrase “killing time” begins to take on a new dimension.

The teacher has a moral responsibility to honor the implicit contract, to give full value to each student in exchange for part of life they can never regain. Not incidentally, the contract works both ways. The students are responsible to be fully attentive and use wisely both their own time and the time they are receiving from the teacher.

All this raises a question I must answer: How do I treat that part of other’s priceless lives that they entrust to me? Do I try to provide value for every minute they give me? Do I show respect for their time? For example, am I usually on time, or am I frequently late?

Furthermore, how do I value my own life? The contract works on the personal level as well as the social. How I treat my own time is a reflection of how I respect myself. We need to treat our own time with the most profound respect. It is part of a contract with ourselves.

The passage of time is relentless. It cannot be recalled. It is what Rudyard Kipling, in his poem “If,” called “the unforgiving minute” that needed to be “filled with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”

Your time and the time of everyone entrusted in some way to you is priceless. Make every moment one of maximum value to all concerned. Treat it with respect. Honor the contract. God gives us the time to use, and he will hold us accountable for how we use it. Don’t give it away for nothing.

c. 2010. Richard D. Dinwiddie. All rights reserved.