-Karthik Gurumurthy
Time is the one thing none of us can get back. Money can be earned again, mistakes can be repaired, and lost things can sometimes be found. But an hour, once spent, is gone for good. Each of us has only so many of them, and none of us knows exactly how many.
Nearly two thousand years ago, Seneca observed something strange about human nature. People guard their money and property carefully, he noted, yet give away their time freely, as if it were worth nothing, even though it’s the most precious thing they have. The same is true today. We would never take money from a colleague’s wallet without asking, yet we often take their time without a second thought.
That’s why how we treat other people’s time says so much about how much we respect them. Respect isn’t only shown in grand gestures. It’s shown in small, everyday choices that quietly honor someone else’s life.
Ending a meeting at 25 minutes instead of 30 gives people a moment to breathe, stretch, or simply arrive at their next commitment without rushing. Putting a one-line summary at the top of a long email lets the reader understand what matters before deciding how much more to read. Sending an agenda before asking people to gather helps them come prepared and know why their presence matters. None of these acts is dramatic, yet each one quietly says, “Your hours matter to me.”
The opposite is just as telling. A vague message, a meeting that drifts with no purpose, or an email that buries its point deep in the middle can leave people feeling that their time is being used carelessly. A meeting invite with no explanation, especially from someone senior, can stir needless worry. People may wonder whether they’ve done something wrong or whether bad news is coming, and they may carry that anxiety for hours. A single line of context could have spared them all of it. A clear purpose brings calm.
These things are easy to overlook because they’re small. But workplaces, like relationships, are built from small moments repeated many times. When people repeatedly feel that their time is respected, they feel respected as people. Trust grows, stress eases, and work becomes lighter.
Perhaps that’s the quiet lesson here: kindness doesn’t always look like warmth or praise. Often it hides in simple acts of consideration, in giving others back a few minutes of the one thing they can never get back.
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