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You look on social media and see jokes about the concept of time, about February 2020 lasting for 36 hours and March lasting for 534 days. Funny, but it really felt that way.

When my students are getting ready to graduate and they start looking at how theyll be compensated, we always chat about three things: money, time and contentment.

Most measures of employment focus on the first one. Money is something we need to survive and I dont discount it. But I also know that its not the only factor in determining whether or not someone is happy. Salary or hourly wages arent the only forms of money either. Aside from good health care, theres retirement to think about, even though its usually the last thing on the minds of traditionally-aged, newly-minted college grads.

In his book, Running Down a Dream, author and podcaster Tim Grahl lays out what he identifies as three primary values that drive our work: Are you pursuing fortune, fame or freedom?

I know what some of you are thinking: Why cant we have all three? Well, those values can certainly be interlaced, and we can claim to have more than one value, but determining what drives us helps us make better choices about our lives.

This concept reminded me of the talks I have with my students.

Fortune? That ones easy. Its all about money. That line from The OJays For The Love Of Money, Money, money, money plays in my mind when I think about fortune as a value. In case you needed an earworm for the day, this song is a good one to have in your head.

Fame is a persons desire to be seen and heard. People who are driven by this are interested in being known and talked about. In their dream scenario, the paparazzi would be waiting outside a Starbucks to snap a picture of them drinking a mochaccino. More importantly, though, fame is about a need some people have to be a participant in the conversation and to express ideas that matter to others.

Freedom is about time. More specifically, its about controlling your own time. But during the pandemic, control and time have been odd concepts to define.

Before the pandemic, I would have easily chosen freedom as my biggest value. I know for a fact Im not motivated by fortune. I couldnt even tell you my current salary; Id need to look it up.

Fame? I suppose fame is a little bit of an influence in my value set. I work as a teacher-scholar, spending a large amount of time reading and processing ideas. Then I get to share those ideas with the students I teach. So, following Grahls definition of fame, Im participating in the conversation, but I dont really crave a large audience.

As an introvert, I realize there would be a hefty price to pay if I gained true fame. Payments would likely be extracted in the form of personal freedom. But I dont engage in ideas because I want fame, I do so because Im curious and my brain is hungry. It feels more like an introspective pursuit than this definition of fame would indicate.

This leaves freedom. As I noted earlier, freedom is such a strange value to quantify right now. Time as a form of freedom has lost some of its meaning during the pandemic. Days used to be structured and the freedom of teaching and research was that I didnt have to account for each minute. Its one of the main reasons I spent 10 years on my education. Having a flexible schedule is important to me.

Freedom. I loved this. I owned this. I valued this. I controlled this. Well, OK, I mostly controlled this. Still, the freedom of time was one of the few concepts over which I felt I still had a modicum of control. Even during the pandemic, I havent given this up.

Im not alone. Now, more than ever, other people are feeling freer because theyre working remotely. But while we have more freedom, time has become an elusive concept. To compare it to money, it would be like eliminating cash and moving to the barter system.

The new reality of time is old fashioned, or futuristic, or just somehow off. How do you measure the value of something that seems to have lost its constant?

What this has to do with The Earnheardts with my husband and our children is directly connected to those conversations I have with my students about the values of work while maintaining a healthy work-life balance (which I understand is different for everyone).

Our four children, although separated in ages by eight years, are very familiar with the concepts of fortune and fame. They think they know what a lot of money is, which is a weird byproduct of their concept of fame YouTube stardom.

YouTube stars are rich! they tell us. Not sure theyve ever offered much proof beyond a few oddball screen names (e.g. Is PewDiePie a YouTube star? I forget). So, of course, Adam and I use this as an opportunity to explain how the workforce functions as part of society and also to urge our children to think about what they value.

Freedom, I fear, is one well struggle with for years to come both during the pandemic and in the time that follows. This is because, like the rest of us, our children have had the concept of freedom and time turned upside down.

You look on social media and see jokes about the concept of time, about February 2020 lasting for 36 hours and March lasting for 534 days. Funny, but it really felt that way. There are memes where people make up months like Octebuary. Its fun to joke, but like all humor, we laugh because we relate to its real and sometimes painful truth.

Depending on what you decide to do, days can be over before you know it or you can look at the clock thinking its 10 p.m., but its only 5 oclock p.m. (or is it a.m.?). The Coronavirus lockdown has messed up our internal clocks and calendars. And, as someone who values time, I dont know how to adapt let alone teach my children about it.

In the early days, we held on to the daily rituals that created structure, but when it became apparent we were going to be isolated for the long haul, we started to relax. Thats when time really started to get weird.

We dont force our kids to wake up at a certain time every morning or tell them when to go to bed every night. Their little internal alarm clocks do this for them. They awake and go to sleep at almost the same time each day anyway. Much like our ancient ancestors, were letting a more natural state of being determine our routines.

It makes me wonder how well all react, what well keep and what well ditch, when life returns to normal, when we really have to start paying attention to clocks again. Will the kids value freedom because theyve had more of a chance to live as they want? Or, is having a set schedule better for all of us as individuals? As a family? Hell, as a society?

I dont know the answers yet, but I may have an idea somewhere around 700:00 a.m. on the 449th day of Janember.

Mary Beth Earnheardt is director of the Anderson Program in Journalism at Youngstown State University. You can follow her on Twitter at @mbexoxo.

Link:
The Earnheardts | The concept of time during a pandemic - Mahoning Matters