The Choice between "Things" and "Love"

The great choice of modern life is around the spending of our time. The modern world has made our time both precious and cheap. Our time is precious because it is scarce and there are competing ends for it’s use. This is the economics of time. When something is both scarce and in demand, it automatically carries a hefty price.  There are limits to our time. We have limited time because as time passes, there is change. And once change happens we never get back to the point before change. We don’t get second chances to spend time with our children. They are young once. When they are grown up, we can’t wind back the clock. Our time is also limited because we will run out of time someday. We run out of time because we die. After we die there is no time; only eternity. It is cheap because what we give up will never be adequately compensated. What we give up is love. When we give up love the bargain is that we get “things” in return. Our modern lifestyles force us to make a choice between things and love. We can’t have both because our time is scarce. We are either spending our time chasing material things, earning money, working to earn money to buy things, buying things, using things, enjoying things, scheming for more things, protecting things, worrying over things, dreaming of more things, envious of other people’s things or we give and receive love, care for others, communicate, bond, help others, build communities. The choice between love and things permeates every aspect of our lives. We make hundreds of choices each day and they fundamentally come down to a choice regarding the use or our time between either things or love. Things in themselves are not bad. We need things to live. We need to work. Work is very good. We need money. Money buys food, clothing and pays the electricity bill. The problem arises when things come to dominate our lives to such an extent that we see everything in life (including people) through a things perspective, a “things” mentality. When we look at life through a things mentality we act and think that  everything can be bought, replaced, upgraded, easily disposed; a price on everything. We become unhappy when we realise that what we give up, love, can never be compensated by things. The modern world, the financial economic machine, the secular society wants your time. It wants your time because human time is the key resource to keep the economic machine growing. The economic machine needs to keep growing because if it stops growing, there will be panic and it will collapse. Modern man is out of kilter because it’s thinking is out of kilter. He is also out of kilter because he is being forced to prioritise his time in favour of things instead of love. Time scarcity is the plague of the modern age; it is also the plague of love and the cause of so much unhappiness. If we prioritise love over things; we find that things lose their attraction. When things lose their attraction they lose their power over our lives. Love meets needs that things cannot meet. The needs that can only be met by love are they only needs that make us happy.