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One of my pet peeves is when people say they don't "have time for" something. Time is not something you have; very rarely does a huge box full of time dump out

by kqr 4y ago

One of my pet peeves is when people say they don't "have time for" something. Time is not something you have; very rarely does a huge box full of time dump out of the air onto your back yard, ready to unpack. Time is something you take for the things that matter to you. I try to lead by good example and say instead that "currently, I can't see myself taking the time to do" something. It's a small change but it feels a lot more honest.

Etheryte 4y ago
If anything, this is simply more verbose without being any more accurate, and I doubt anyone besides yourself notices or thinks there's a difference.
- kqr 4y ago
  It's possible the only person this makes a difference to is myself. I often use my language as a cue to remind myself of thought traps I easily fall into. One of those traps is the idea that I'm not fully in control over how I spend my time. By choosing to phrase things in ways that emphasise agency lies with me I remind myself that I actually choose what to spend time on. (Another one of these is that I try to never use the word "empower" but explaining that one is a bit more complicated.)
- laserlight 4y ago
  I notice the difference. When people say that they don't have time for something, they consider that statement to be as factual as laws of physics. In reality though, time is something that one allocates according to their priorities. One cannot not have time for something. They can only choose to not allocate time for it.
  - Etheryte 4y ago
    What makes you think you know how other people consider those words? Attributing or inferring meaning where there is none is a common logical fallacy. In other words, you thinking there is a certain rationale to other people's actions doesn't mean their actual reasoning is anywhere close to it, nor that there even is any.
    - laserlight 4y ago
      > What makes you think you know how other people consider those words? When I say “they consider”, I don't propose that I know what's in people's minds. My experience is that people don't talk about their time as something they choose to allocate in a certain way. Rather, they talk about it as if it's fixed, like laws of physics.
jasode 4y ago
>One of my pet peeves is when people say they don't "have time for" something. Time is not something you have; The "have time" phrase is an idiom[1]: a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ). For the criticism you wrote about "have", someone else can write the same criticism about "take" in "taking the time". And the same defense can be used for that too: "take the time" is another idiom that must be interpreted as a group and shouldn't be logically parsed as separate words. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=idiom https://www.google.com/search?q=idiom
- laserlight 4y ago
  When people talk about having time, they are not aware that it's an idiom for sparing time to do it. They talk about having time as in having money, like it's something that one can pull out of a drawer.
  - hazz99 4y ago
    Is that not accurate? There’s only so many hours in the day, and I have to split them between competing priorities. If I don’t have time for something, I don’t have the remaining hours to spend on it, given the time I’ll spend doing other things.
    - kqr 4y ago
      You have no choice but to spend all your 24 hours in the day. You can't just skip over 7--9 AM and then have two hours in your back pocket for when you are short on time. So no, you never just have time you're not using anyway. You're always using all of your time. On what is a matter of priorities. However, if you would spend 19--21 watching a TV series, or twiddling your thumbs, you can choose to take that time to do something else.
      - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
        "take" is weird wording too. it's your time, you already have it. it's just how you use it.
mrmanner 4y ago
Time in this regard is similar to money, or other things you have a limited amount of. You can very well say “I can’t afford that” or “I don’t have money enough to buy that” even if you technically have money in the bank enough to pay for something right now. Maybe you want some money as a buffer for unplanned expenses, or you’ve already agreed to but something that’s not yet paid. Same goes for time: Yes you can choose what to do at any given moment, but the decision may already be made. You may have promised to do something - meet someone for lunch, go to work. Or you know that you need that time to sleep in order to feel well. Surely it’s possible to change those decisions, the same way it’s possible to spend money in a restaurant instead of paying the rent. It’s not weird to speak of the decisions as final and the time already “spent”, though.
- dxuh 4y ago
  But in the same way it's even somewhat rude if e.g. a billionaire says they don't have money to buy something (assuming it's fairly cheap). It makes a difference whether they say that they don't have money or that they don't want to spend it. And the whole point of the comment was to say that it is often NOT someone not being able to afford it time-wise.

by kqr 4y ago

Etheryte 4y ago

If anything, this is simply more verbose without being any more accurate, and I doubt anyone besides yourself notices or thinks there's a difference.

kqr 4y ago
It's possible the only person this makes a difference to is myself. I often use my language as a cue to remind myself of thought traps I easily fall into. One of those traps is the idea that I'm not fully in control over how I spend my time. By choosing to phrase things in ways that emphasise agency lies with me I remind myself that I actually choose what to spend time on. (Another one of these is that I try to never use the word "empower" but explaining that one is a bit more complicated.)
laserlight 4y ago
I notice the difference. When people say that they don't have time for something, they consider that statement to be as factual as laws of physics. In reality though, time is something that one allocates according to their priorities. One cannot not have time for something. They can only choose to not allocate time for it.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  What makes you think you know how other people consider those words? Attributing or inferring meaning where there is none is a common logical fallacy. In other words, you thinking there is a certain rationale to other people's actions doesn't mean their actual reasoning is anywhere close to it, nor that there even is any.
  - laserlight 4y ago
    > What makes you think you know how other people consider those words? When I say “they consider”, I don't propose that I know what's in people's minds. My experience is that people don't talk about their time as something they choose to allocate in a certain way. Rather, they talk about it as if it's fixed, like laws of physics.

jasode 4y ago

>One of my pet peeves is when people say they don't "have time for" something. Time is not something you have; The "have time" phrase is an idiom[1]: a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ). For the criticism you wrote about "have", someone else can write the same criticism about "take" in "taking the time". And the same defense can be used for that too: "take the time" is another idiom that must be interpreted as a group and shouldn't be logically parsed as separate words. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=idiom https://www.google.com/search?q=idiom

laserlight 4y ago
When people talk about having time, they are not aware that it's an idiom for sparing time to do it. They talk about having time as in having money, like it's something that one can pull out of a drawer.
- hazz99 4y ago
  Is that not accurate? There’s only so many hours in the day, and I have to split them between competing priorities. If I don’t have time for something, I don’t have the remaining hours to spend on it, given the time I’ll spend doing other things.
  - kqr 4y ago
    You have no choice but to spend all your 24 hours in the day. You can't just skip over 7--9 AM and then have two hours in your back pocket for when you are short on time. So no, you never just have time you're not using anyway. You're always using all of your time. On what is a matter of priorities. However, if you would spend 19--21 watching a TV series, or twiddling your thumbs, you can choose to take that time to do something else.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
      "take" is weird wording too. it's your time, you already have it. it's just how you use it.

mrmanner 4y ago

Time in this regard is similar to money, or other things you have a limited amount of. You can very well say “I can’t afford that” or “I don’t have money enough to buy that” even if you technically have money in the bank enough to pay for something right now. Maybe you want some money as a buffer for unplanned expenses, or you’ve already agreed to but something that’s not yet paid. Same goes for time: Yes you can choose what to do at any given moment, but the decision may already be made. You may have promised to do something - meet someone for lunch, go to work. Or you know that you need that time to sleep in order to feel well. Surely it’s possible to change those decisions, the same way it’s possible to spend money in a restaurant instead of paying the rent. It’s not weird to speak of the decisions as final and the time already “spent”, though.

dxuh 4y ago
But in the same way it's even somewhat rude if e.g. a billionaire says they don't have money to buy something (assuming it's fairly cheap). It makes a difference whether they say that they don't have money or that they don't want to spend it. And the whole point of the comment was to say that it is often NOT someone not being able to afford it time-wise.