Diwang Malaya

In Robert Greene’s book, The Laws of Human Nature, he made me think about how we approach work. In the final chapter, Greene explores our tendency to live as though death is something distant. Something we know will happen, of course, but rarely consider when making everyday decisions.

We behave as though time is an unlimited resource. There’s always next month. Next year. When business improves. When we have enough savings. When the children are older. When things are a little less hectic. We have plenty of reasons to put things off, and some of them are perfectly reasonable.

But what if the time we’re counting on isn’t actually there? It’s an uncomfortable thought. Nobody particularly enjoys contemplating mortality over their morning coffee.

Still, I wonder whether remembering that our time is limited might help us make better decisions about how we spend it. Especially in our professional lives.

The Freedom We Thought We Were Building

One of the things that attracts people to freelancing is freedom. The freedom to choose clients, set schedules, work from anywhere, and hopefully build a career that fits around the life we want to live.

At least, that’s the idea. But somewhere along the way, it’s surprisingly easy to create a working arrangement that gives us very little freedom at all. We accept projects we don’t particularly enjoy because we need the income. We hesitate to set boundaries because we’re afraid of losing a client. We keep taking on more work because we’re never entirely sure when the next opportunity will come.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Financial security matters. Responsibilities don’t disappear simply because we’ve discovered an interesting philosophical idea.

But I think there’s a difference between making a necessary compromise and allowing that compromise to become our permanent way of working. We tell ourselves that once we’re earning enough, we’ll become more selective. Once we have more clients, we’ll stop accepting projects that don’t suit us. Once we’re established, we’ll finally make time to learn that skill, pursue that idea, or build something of our own.

But when exactly does that happen? And how do we know when we’ve reached enough?

I sometimes wonder whether we become so focused on building a sustainable freelance career that we forget to ask what kind of life that career is supposed to sustain.

Business Owners Aren’t So Different

The same pattern appears on the other side of the relationship. Someone starts a business because they want to build something meaningful. Perhaps they want financial independence, greater control over their future, or the satisfaction of creating something valuable.

Then the business grows. More customers. More responsibilities. More decisions. More problems to solve. What began as a way to create freedom can slowly become something that demands nearly every waking hour.

The owner becomes indispensable to everything. Every decision needs their approval. Every problem lands on their desk. Every new opportunity feels too important to pass up. And because there’s always another target to reach, stepping away never feels quite justified. Perhaps the business is successful by every conventional measure. But does the owner actually have the freedom they set out to create?

Of course, some people genuinely enjoy being deeply involved in their businesses. Not everyone dreams of working fewer hours, and there’s nothing wrong with finding meaning in work. The question is whether that involvement is a conscious choice or simply something they’ve become accustomed to.

There’s a difference.

Two People, One Finite Resource

Here’s where I think the freelancer-client relationship becomes particularly interesting. We often talk about freelancers and clients as though they have competing interests.

The freelancer wants fair compensation, autonomy, and reasonable expectations. The client wants value, reliability, good results, and a sensible return on investment.

Both perspectives make sense.

But beneath the contracts, invoices, deadlines, and deliverables, something else is happening. Both people are spending a resource they can never recover.

Time.

Think about it. When a freelancer accepts a project, they’re committing more than their professional skills. They’re giving away hours of their life. Hours they could have spent with family, learning something new, building their own business, resting, or pursuing another opportunity. Of course, they’re compensated for those hours. That’s how work functions. But compensation doesn’t make time renewable.

Now consider the client. When a business owner hires a freelancer, they’re often trying to reclaim some of their own time. Perhaps they need someone to manage operations, produce content, organize systems, or take care of work that’s preventing them from focusing on other priorities. They’re spending money to access someone else’s expertise and capacity.

The freelancer is giving up time to earn money. The client is spending money to recover time.

They’re approaching the transaction from opposite directions. Yet both are ultimately trying to make better use of a limited life.

I find that fascinating. Because once you look at the relationship this way, it becomes harder to see it as merely an exchange of services for payment. It’s also an exchange of trust, attention, and opportunity.

And perhaps that should influence how both parties approach working together.

What Does Respecting Time Actually Look Like?

For freelancers, valuing our own time shouldn’t mean simply charging more or becoming increasingly selective about who we work with. It should also make us more conscious of the time our clients entrust to us.

If someone hires us to help run their business, are we genuinely making their work easier? Are we delivering something useful? Are we communicating clearly, taking responsibility, and doing what we said we would do? Or are we simply measuring our contribution by the number of hours we’ve logged?

I think that’s worth examining. And clients have their own questions to consider. When hiring a freelancer, are expectations clear? Are meetings necessary? Are deadlines reasonable? Are instructions sufficiently thought through before work begins?

How much time gets lost to unnecessary back-and-forth, unclear priorities, or revisions that could have been avoided with better communication? Paying someone for their time doesn’t mean that time has no value beyond the transaction.

But the reverse is equally important. A freelancer’s desire for freedom doesn’t eliminate their responsibility to deliver what they’ve promised.

Respect has to work in both directions. And perhaps the healthiest professional relationships are those where both parties understand that the other person’s time matters just as much as their own.

Are We Paying for Time or Value?

There’s another interesting layer to this. Sometimes the way we structure freelance work creates incentives that don’t necessarily benefit either party.

Take hourly billing. Suppose a freelancer becomes exceptionally good at a particular task. Something that previously took five hours now takes two. The client gets the same result, perhaps even a better one, in less time.

That’s a good thing.

But if the freelancer is paid strictly by the hour, becoming more efficient can actually mean earning less. The client benefits from the freelancer’s experience, while the freelancer may be financially rewarded for taking longer.

Neither party needs to be dishonest for this tension to exist. It’s simply a consequence of how the arrangement is structured. And it raises a question.

Are we rewarding the time spent, or the value created?

Now, I’m not suggesting hourly billing is inherently flawed. Some work genuinely requires ongoing availability. Some projects are difficult to scope in advance. And sometimes paying for someone’s time is the most practical and fairest arrangement for everyone involved.

Value-based or project-based pricing comes with its own complications, too. But perhaps the important thing is understanding what we’re actually trying to achieve.

If a freelancer can deliver excellent work in fewer hours, shouldn’t that expertise have value? And if a business owner can achieve the same result without consuming unnecessary time and resources, isn’t that worth considering?

Maybe the question isn’t which pricing model is best. Maybe it’s whether the arrangements we’ve created encourage the kind of working relationship we actually want.

But What About the People Who Can’t Afford to Choose?

There’s something important I don’t want to overlook. It’s easy to talk about being selective when you have financial security. It’s considerably harder when you’re a freelancer trying to pay the bills, or a business owner struggling to keep a company afloat. Not everyone has the luxury of turning down work.

Sometimes accepting a difficult project is the responsible decision. Sometimes working long hours is necessary. Sometimes survival has to come before fulfillment. I don’t think acknowledging that life is short should become another reason to judge people for the choices they make.

In fact, I think it should make us more understanding of the circumstances that shape those choices. But perhaps even when our options are limited, we can begin noticing which compromises are temporary and which ones we’re allowing to become permanent.

We might not be able to change everything today. But we can become more conscious of what we’re working toward.

And maybe that awareness is where better decisions begin.

The Time We Give Each Other

I keep coming back to the relationship between freelancers and clients. Two people entering a professional arrangement, each hoping to gain something valuable.

One offers expertise and effort. The other offers compensation and opportunity.

Both have responsibilities. Both have expectations. Both have something at stake.

And both are working with a limited amount of time.

Perhaps remembering that could make us more thoughtful about the commitments we make. More careful about the promises we give. More respectful of boundaries, expectations, and the ordinary hours that make up someone else’s life.

Not every project needs to be meaningful. Not every client relationship needs to become a friendship. And not every working day needs to feel like a grand expression of purpose.

Sometimes work is simply work. But even ordinary work involves a choice about where our time goes. And those choices, repeated over months and years, eventually become the shape of our lives.

Perhaps the most valuable thing we bring into a professional relationship isn’t our money, our expertise, or even the work itself. It’s the portion of our lives we’re willing to give to it. Once that time is spent, neither the freelancer nor the client gets it back.

So maybe the question worth asking isn’t how much more we can fit into our working lives. Maybe it’s something simpler.

If we truly understood that our time was borrowed, would we still choose to spend it the way we do?