Give the Gift of Time

I know people have feelings about this, but I never give money to panhandlers. Never have. There are the usual concerns about how they’re probably just going to score drugs with the money, but that’s not really why. We all have a desire to help people. But a dollar doesn’t really do anything. What is needed is to take that person to rehab, get them an apartment, get them cleaned up, get them a haircut, get them new clothes, and spend six months coaching them and following them around to make sure they get a job and become a productive member of society. But nobody has the time for that shit. So they give them a dollar, not because it really accomplishes anything, but because it eases their conscience. So it’s not really about the homeless person, it’s about you. So we give that dollar with the idea that a dollar might momentarily ease this person’s suffering, and that is something, but maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just goes to drugs. The point is, it’s not really helping.

Help is for the people who want it, not for the people who need it.

What is really needed is to donate time, rather than money. But that’s true of a lot of things, right? A common phenomenon among rich fuckers is they start writing checks to a lot of different charitable organizations. Sometimes this is done with the best of intentions. Sometimes this is done with the intent to get their name on the donor wall. And rich people tend to have lots of money, but not a lot of time. For sure, the money helps. But if rich people were generous with their time, rather than their money, it would be more meaningful. It applies to me as well. I have donated to a local animal shelter. Years ago, someone suggested that I put on some old jeans and a T-shirt and go down there and scoop litter boxes. Truthfully, I would make the time to do that—working with your hands gets you out of your head—but animal shelters can be a very sad place. I don’t think I could handle it. So I write checks, and leave the really hard problems to someone else. That seems to be my role here. But I’m doing what all the other rich fuckers do—donating money, not time.

Nobody has time. People just want to throw money at a problem and hope it goes away. San Francisco has been doing this with its homeless population for decades, with little to show for it. They spend billions upon billions of dollars, and they have hundreds of mental health professionals and social workers working on this, and it seems to have the opposite effect of what is intended. Help is for people who want it, not for people who need it.

But when I say “nobody has time,” I’m not just talking about philanthropy, I’m talking about our dealings with family and friends. The most precious gift we could give someone is our time. Say you have a cousin that is struggling financially. You could throw money at the problem, and give him five thousand bucks, which would assuage your conscience, but my guess is it probably wouldn’t help. You would be throwing good money after bad. Or you could give them the gift of time, buy a plane ticket, fly out to East Frogkick, sit down at the kitchen table, go through all their income and expenses and credit card statements, make a budget, and teach them a little discipline. It could be done—few financial problems are intractable. And sometimes you offer to help and the help is refused. But nobody wants to jump on a plane and fly out to East Frogkick. Who has time for that shit? You have a job and a spouse and a house and some kids and some pets and church and karate or whatever else you do with your spare time, and maybe if you ignore this problem with your broke cousin long enough, it will go away. That’s the way most people behave. I’m just going to pretend this isn’t happening and maybe it goes away.

This is a recurring theme in my essays, but it’s worth saying explicitly here: time is more valuable than money. Jeff Bezos donated $10 billion to fight climate change, hoping that people would think he was a little less of an asshole. Ten billion dollars. It had no effect on public opinion whatsoever. They were still putting guillotines outside his house. Now, let’s say that Jeff Bezos goes around meeting kids who are terminally ill with cancer in the hospital. How do you think people react to that? Sure, there will always be left-wing dicks who doubt his intentions, but my guess is that most people would view that pretty favorably. The difference: he is giving time rather than money.

Jeff Bezos’s time is super important. He is being pulled in a bunch of different directions. My time is also important. Even at my level, I am being pulled in a bunch of different directions. But there are a handful of people—twenty, maybe—that if they were struggling, I would be on a plane to East Frogkick in a second. Or at a minimum, I would pick up the phone. They say you really find out who your friends are in times of trouble. The people who will give you the gift of time.

As I’ve mentioned, I spent three weeks in a psychiatric ward in 2006. Do you want to know what I remember about that experience? I remember the people who visited me. In fact, I remember everyone who helped me during that period of my life. Keep in mind that a lot of progress has been made in educating people about mental illness since then. In 2006, there was still a strong stigma. Trust me, I know exactly who visited me back then, 17 years later. I’m not friends with all of them—people go in different directions. But I will never forget that they gave me the gift of time when I was at the most vulnerable point in my life.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they spend their time. Some people spend a lot of time with their kids—that’s their priority, and that’s fine. I spend a lot of time working (and with my cats). Some people spend a lot of time playing video games, and that says something, too. If you really want to figure out why one or more aspects of your life isn’t working, make a time chart. For a week, write down what you are doing for every 15-minute increment of the day. What you will probably see is that there is a lot of time that is not well-spent. You will probably see that you spend an inordinate amount of time on leisure activities, likes games, sports, TV, or social media. You will also see that you do not spend as much time working as you thought. You will also see that you are really not quite as busy as you thought. There is probably someone out there who needs your help, who is explicitly asking for your help, and you say that you do not have enough time. That’s bullshit. We all have time. I swear to God you have time. You don’t even have to get on a plane to East Frogkick. All it takes is a phone call.

I am where I am today because of a handful of people who gave me the gift of time when I needed it the most. When you throw money at a problem, it is so…antiseptic. You lose the personal connection between the donor and the recipient, especially when the money passes through a third party, which is the reason why all social welfare programs eventually fail. And if they succeed, it is because of the efforts of caregivers and social workers who actually give a shit. Very few problems have been solved by throwing money at them. Nearly all problems have been solved by one person spending time with another.

This isn’t to say that you should never give money. Money has its place. But giving money is easy. You can always make more money. You can’t make more time.