Respect, Boundaries, and the Opportunity Cost of Our Time
Dr. William H. Wang
One of the simplest ways to observe whether a person genuinely respects others is to pay attention to how that person communicates online. In everyday life, most people make at least some effort to appear polite. Social conventions encourage restraint. Online communication, however, often removes part of that restraint. The way someone behaves when there is little social cost to being rude can therefore reveal something important about how that person understands respect and interpersonal boundaries.
Let me give an example. Some time ago, after I mentioned a few minor frustrations that I had encountered at work, a woman suddenly concluded that what I had described somehow demonstrated that economic theory does not correspond to reality.
The problem was not that she disagreed with me. Scholars should welcome disagreement. Intellectual humility requires us to recognize the limits of our own knowledge and to remain willing to reconsider our conclusions when confronted with better arguments or evidence.
The problem was the manner in which she approached the conversation. From what she wrote, it was apparent that she had little formal knowledge of economics, yet she repeatedly tried to persuade me to read more material supporting her position. There is something intellectually strange about confidently instructing another person without first understanding what that person already knows. This would be inappropriate in almost any specialized field. Economics should be no different.
Expertise does not make someone infallible. Having studied economics professionally certainly does not mean that I am automatically correct in every economic debate. But intellectual humility works in both directions. Experts should recognize the limits of their expertise, while nonexperts should also recognize the limits of theirs. Genuine intellectual humility begins with the possibility that the person in front of us may know something that we do not.
I patiently explained this basic point and made it clear that I did not wish to continue discussing the subject. Nevertheless, she continued sending me messages. At that point, the issue was no longer economics. It was about boundaries.
So I removed her from my social media.
Some people might consider that reaction excessive. I see it differently. When someone politely tells you that a conversation is over, respecting that decision is one of the most elementary forms of interpersonal respect. Continuing to push the conversation after a clear boundary has been established tells us something about that person’s willingness—or unwillingness—to recognize the autonomy of others.
There is also a broader lesson here. Time is perhaps the most democratic scarce resource in human existence: whether rich or poor, powerful or ordinary, every person receives only twenty-four hours each day. The crucial difference is how we choose to allocate them.
Economists call this opportunity cost. Every additional minute spent arguing with someone who has no intention of listening is a minute that cannot be spent reading a good book, conducting research, exercising, working, spending time with people we love, building something useful, or simply enjoying life.
And the accumulation of those choices matters.
People sometimes wonder why certain individuals appear to move forward intellectually, professionally, or personally while others remain in essentially the same place for years. There is rarely one explanation. But our lives are, to a considerable extent, the cumulative consequence of thousands of small decisions. How we spend an hour today may seem insignificant. Repeated over months and years, however, those hours gradually become our lives.
This is why I have learned to be much more selective about whom I engage with. Disagreement itself is not a reason to avoid someone. Quite the opposite: an intelligent disagreement conducted with mutual respect can be extraordinarily valuable. I have learned a great deal from people with whom I strongly disagree.
But disagreement and disrespect are not the same thing.
If someone repeatedly ignores your boundaries, speaks to you disrespectfully, or approaches every conversation with the assumption that there is nothing they might learn from you, you are under no obligation to continue giving that person your attention. Their behavior may have many explanations that we cannot know from the outside, so there is little value in trying to diagnose or condemn them. What we can control is whether we continue participating in the interaction.
For those of us who are Christians, there is an additional distinction worth remembering: compassion does not require unlimited access to our time. We can pray for someone, hope that they become happier and wiser, and sincerely wish them well without continuing to invite destructive interactions into our lives. Forgiveness and boundaries are not contradictions.
Perhaps the deeper lesson is therefore quite simple: respect other people’s boundaries, remain humble about what you know, and guard your own time carefully.
We cannot decide how another person behaves. We can decide how much of our finite life we give to that behavior.
And sometimes the wisest response is not another argument.
It is simply to walk away.
At that point, economic reform becomes a constitutional question.
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How to Cite this Article (APA 7th edition)
Wang, H. H. (2026, September 20). Respect, Boundaries, and the Opportunity Cost of Our Time.
