Theft

Is it possible to steal time?  Time is not something that can be owned.  It simply flows.  Humans have no control over it, nothing in the world can change it.  Why, then, do people always talk about how people, things, and events all steal their time?  Even volunteering campaigns and such things are always about "giving time."  But it's not possible to give time.  Technically, going by the definitions of the words, it's not even really possible to spend time.  But it can be used differently, so I'll let that one slide.

The problem with this is that we can't change time.  We can only choose what we do with it.  But that's not the same thing as giving time or saving time or stealing it.  It doesn't work that way.  There's no way to give time or take it away.  It is possible to alter how much time remains in an individual's life, either by killing them or encouraging them to maintain better health or other such things.

But that's not the same as giving time or taking it or stealing it.  Humans have this odd illusion that they are actually in control of things in the universe.  And the thing is, they're not.  Things happen.  Sure, humans add to that, but the most major things that happen, we have absolutely no control over.  Time goes on.  It will always (maybe) go on the way it has.  The best we can do is determine an arbitrary measure for it.

That may give the illusion of control.  But illusion and reality (as well as we can perceive it) are very different things.  Unfortunately, that fact seems lost on many people.  So much so that it has become incorporated into society and human culture as a whole.  Thus we sometimes think that we can in fact steal time, even though that just doesn't work.