The Most Valuable Asset You Can Never Own

Anyone with even the tiniest of financial knowledge knows that he has to focus on growing his asset column and not his liabilities. In line with this, you might try to list assets that you can acquire and invest in.

But, what if I told you there is an asset you cannot own and yet use? And in fact, it is probably more important than any other asset, you own or don't.

Interesting, right?

Then let's get right into it.

First of all, let's review what an asset is.

Basically, an asset is any property that brings in cash. That is, it creates positive cash flow and contributes to your overall income.

A rental property is a great example of this. Suppose you have a five-storied building with two flats on each floor. You rent them and the tenants give you ৳10,000/month for every flat.

This rental money is helping you by contributing to your income. This is an asset.

So far, we have understood what an asset is. Now let's see if we can use any asset that cannot be owned.

One example can be 'Grammarly'.

This software will help you make your writing better. So, this is an asset that you cannot own, yet use to your advantage and create great copies.

Then again, you are paying a monthly fee to use it. Which technically means, you own the product to some extent.

I guess, we need a better example.

At this point, you might be wondering, does such an asset even exist?

In my opinion, it does.

And the prime example of such an asset is 'time'.

Yes, time is an asset. And no, you can never own it.

Thus, time is an asset you can never own.

In fact, you are bound by time. You cannot go outside it. Nor can you mend it. You have the same privilege of time as does anyone else.

You cannot buy time. You cannot rent it either. You can only make use of it to your advantage. So can anyone else.

Yet, it is so much valuable that when we look for jobs, we evaluate based on the hourly rate of the jobs. We trade time for money. But does everyone get the same amount of money for the same amount of time?

No. One gets $10, while the other gets $100, for instance. But the time they are utilizing is the same. However, the values are not. One holds and/or creates more values than the other, at least according to the employer/client.

The person who is creating more value with the same amount of time must have used their time, before, in a very effective way so as to build up such high value. This means he used his time wisely before so that now, he can bring in more value with the same amount of time, as opposed to the person who wasted his time earlier and is suffering now.

Now take the case of a successful investor who invested in a business, which he doesn’t run, and thus gets a lot of passive cash flow. Here, he is trading money for money and time, because all of it is to a great extent, passive.

This process saves him a lot of time, which he can use to trade for something else, like knowledge or more money.

At the end of the day, he does not own a single second. He can only make use of it.

And whoever makes use of his time wisely will surely end up in a better position than the one who doesn’t.

The way to being effective with time is to understand this:

The most valuable asset you can never own is time.

Review from ChatGPT

The writing is conceptually correct. It discusses the idea that time is a valuable asset that cannot be owned but can be utilized effectively. It explores the concept of time as a limited resource that everyone has equal access to, but the way it is used can determine the outcomes and value created. The examples provided, such as the comparison between individuals earning different amounts of money for the same amount of time, illustrate the importance of using time wisely and making effective choices. The overall concept of time being an invaluable asset is well-supported throughout the writing.