The Parable of Full Time

There was a young man named Michael who had finished his schooling, yet had not found his path.

He lived lightly in the city. He rode through the streets with his friends. He laughed loudly.

He wasted time beautifully. And because he did not yet know what his life was for, he

believed he still had plenty of life left to spend.

One day, while Michael stood with his friends, a man in fine clothes approached him.

“Can you help me with something?” the man asked.

Michael did not move at first.

But the man said, “I will give you fifty dollars.”

Then Michael stepped forward.

The man brought him to a square marked upon the ground.

“Stand here until evening,” said the man.

Michael looked at the square. He looked at the man. He looked at the city moving around him.

“That is all?” Michael asked.

“That is all,” said the man.

So Michael stood in the square.

At first, he thought it was foolish. Then he thought it was easy. Then he thought it was lucky.

For many men labored with their backs. Many men begged for work. Many men searched and were not chosen.

But Michael had been chosen to stand.

And when evening came, the man returned and gave him his pay.

“You did well,” said the man. “Come tomorrow, and I will pay you more.”

Michael smiled.

For he had found a way to turn stillness into money.

So he returned the next day.

Again he stood in the square.

The sun crossed over him. The people passed by him. The city breathed around him. And Michael did not move.

Then his friends came.

“Come with us,” they said. “We are going to ride. We are going to laugh. We are going to be young while we are still young.”

Michael looked at them with longing.

“I cannot,” he said. “I am working.”

His friends looked at the square.

“Doing what?”

Michael stood taller.

“I am making a living.”

And because he had said the words, he believed them.

The next day, the man paid him more.

The next week, the man called him reliable.

The next month, the man called him loyal.

The next season, the man called him an asset.

And Michael loved these words.

For before, he had only been Michael. Now he was official.

Then one day a woman ran past him crying.

“My purse!” she shouted. “Please help me! He stole my purse!”

Michael saw the thief running. He saw the woman’s fear. He saw the square beneath his feet.

His body wanted to move. His conscience wanted to move. His life wanted to move.

But his wages stood still.

“I am sorry,” Michael said. “I am working.”

The woman looked at him.

“No, you are not sorry,” she said.

And she was right.

For sorrow that does not move the body has not yet become love.

That evening, the man returned and gave Michael his pay.

Michael wanted to ask a question.

He wanted to ask, “What is the purpose of this square?”

He wanted to ask, “Who benefits from my standing here?”

He wanted to ask, “What kind of work requires me to ignore the living?”

But the money was in his hand.

So the question died in his throat.

Years passed.

The square became his office. The office became his title. The title became his identity. The identity became his prison.

The man raised his salary.

Michael bought better clothes.

The man gave him a room above the square.

Michael looked through the window and saw the bridge, the river, the lights, the people, the movement of the city.

He had earned a view of the life he no longer entered.

And he called this success.

Then one day, after many years, Michael saw young people standing where he once stood.

They were laughing foolishly. They were arguing over nothing. They were wasting time beautifully.

One of them was offered money.

Michael watched him step toward the square.

And for the first time, Michael understood the shape of his life.

The square had not trapped him. The money had not trapped him. The businessman had not trapped him.

He had been trapped by the belief that because something paid him, it owned his obedience.

He had confused wages with purpose. He had confused loyalty with life. He had confused standing still with standing firm.

So Michael called for the man.

“I would like to retire,” he said.

The man looked at him kindly, for the man had never needed chains.

“Very well,” said the man.

And Michael stepped out of the square.

But when his foot touched the open ground, he trembled.

For freedom felt strange after years of permission.

He looked at the city.

The city had not waited for him. His friends had grown older. The woman he did not help had disappeared into the years. The days he had sold had not been stored somewhere for his return.

Then Michael wept.

Not because work was evil. Not because money was evil. Not because duty was evil.

He wept because he had given full time to something that had never given full life back to him.

And a voice within him said:

A man must work. A man must eat. A man must provide. A man must become reliable.

But let no man call a cage a calling simply because the cage pays well.

Let no man surrender his conscience to a square drawn by another.

Let no man become so loyal to his post that he becomes absent from Life.

For work is holy when it serves Life.

But when work demands the whole man and returns only money, it is not a vocation.

It is an altar.

And Time is the thing being sacrificed.