Oct 6, 2008
Translating politeness: The 3 things that “I don’t have time” can actually mean.
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1. Other things I’m doing are more important.
2. There’s other stuff I want to do more.
3. I just plain don’t feel like it.
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
That’s also exactly what “I can’t afford it” means. And it applies to individuals, families, businesses, or the government.
And yet we never feel bold enough to say the actual reason.
We know the good we should do but we don’t do it still we want to look like we are the kind of people that do it?
#3 really is a restatement of #2, from the heart’s perspective. “I don’t feel like doing that. I feel like doing what I want to do.”
Same thing often applies to “I have to …” There is little in life you have to do. I’ve tried to get intot he habit (still working on it) of simply stating what I already have planned if it conflicts with what someone else has asked me to do.
There ARE some really deep human concerns just beneath the surface of this kind of language.
Trust, honesty, integrity …
Existential and moral freedom and responsibility …
I woudn’t be a linguistic Nazi about it out there. For some people it may just be a socio-lingusitic ‘tic’ – but when my students say things like, “I have to go to college,” or “My parents are making me study for the SAT,” I always try to remind them that these things are simply not true. If you choose to go to college, go to college. If you want to study the SAT rather than pay whatever price you would have to pay, great. But don’t blame your life and your choices on someone else, your lack of time, or what you have owned as your obligations.
I think time is one of my most treasured assets and “I don’t have the time,” is an assessment I should render more often.
Why put cast phrase in the light of polite excuse making? It may be the “actual reason” and a very wise response.
2nd paragraph should start: “Why cast this phrase…”
Is there any way to edit after hitting the [submit] button?
Mark,
I’m not saying we shouldn’t use the phrase. In fact, maybe we should use it more, like you say.
I’m just observing what it means.
I think it’s understood that when I say I don’t have time to do something that’s because I’m giving my time to something else. What is not so clear is that where I give my time is usually my choice.
So it’s not the phrase “I don’t have time” that’s the problem. The problem is using it to shift blame, so we don’t feel bad telling people no.
This phrase has long since annoyed me. I do use it by try not to. To me it seems just dishonest. We have all the time in the world. The issue is not time, it’s priorities. I would rather have someone honestly tell me, “I am choosing to not make that a priority right now.”
z
So, thinking with you, would you want people to say something like, “Abraham, I can’t write that article because I value the opportunity less than I value playing scrabble with my wife”?
“I don’t have the time” seems like a reasonable and less awkward substitute for that.
Is your actual frustration with people who lack a vision for stewarding their resources (like time) well?
No, Mark, I don’t mind if people say they don’t have time. I say it a lot, myself.
It’s just interesting (to me at least) to note what “I don’t have time” really means.
I consider it an idiom, to be used freely, but rarely taken literally.
yes, yes, and yes … but sometimes, i actually mean, “i don’t have time … i would love to, i think it’s more important than what i’m doing, but i’ve already made a commitment, and now i’m booked. i don’t have time.”
Or it could mean – “I don’t have time.” As it did when my wife’s grandfather, in his hospital bed, said it when he was presented with a long book to read… He was right, as it turned out.
The concept of priorities: I want to be with my children more than to lead a “ministry”.
Alas, I don’t have time to explain further, it’s time to make the boys lunch.
I used to say, “I don’t have time” to be in God’s word. That is, of course, until God changed my heart. Now I “make” time to be in His word every day and say, “I don’t have time” for whatever worldly foolishness I was doing before (in place of studying God’s word). :) That’s what I think of when I hear, “I don’t have time.” :)
To me, Mark, it’s a simple matter of whether or not you are using the phrase to “lie” to yourself or others.
If you know by “I don’t have the time” you mean, “I value the time to play scrabble with my wife” and your simple concern is the courtesty of not telling the person who wants to go out for a beer that you would rather play scrabble with your wife, followed closely by reading a book, followed closely by cleaning under your nails rather than going out for a beer with that guy — I think that’s fine.
As Father Zossima says in The Brothers Karamazov, “Do not lie. Above all, do not lie to yourself.”
Hmm… interesting thoughts. I often wonder what it would be like to be guided by a sense of divine timing. By that… I mean Jesus never seemed rushed, lived only 33 years on earth, and “accomplished everything the Father had given him to do.”
When Jesus found out Lazarus was dying, he didn’t drop everything to go be with his friend and heal him. His life was not driven by the tyranny of the urgent.
If my time and resources are surrendered to God, it becomes of a matter of discerning those things that HE has given me to do. In my own “wisdom,” I end up taking on more than I can handle or going to the other extreme and being lazy. Workaholism and laziness are two sides of the same coin; they both come when take our eyes off Christ and settle for building kingdoms of our own.