We all pay all the time
Every human starts roughly with 100 years of time in their time bank. A 100 years means 52,560,000 minutes overall and right from the birth, we spend this currency called `time` to every possible activity. Let us call this currency T-dollar⏳. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years are the units of this currency. Every human gets roughly same amount of time currency when they are born. This article is a thought experiment that treats the time as a currency and its influencing factors.
Note: This article is not written by ChatGPT 😉
Why time is so important ?
Everyone wants to optimize their time. Instances like:
1. overnight miracles(lotteries) are more than desirable
2. companies want a shorter Time To Market (TTM) for their products
3. programmers constantly fine-tune their programs to run them faster than before
These examples are only a few which state the importance of time. Let’s see what if time is a currency.
Time as a currency
We generally use our T-dollars ⏳ for buying activities like but not limited to:
- Playing
- Learning
- Working
- Traveling
- Sleeping
For example, I spend 45 minutes on a BART train from Walnut Creek to Civic Center, San Francisco. It means I paid 45 minutes of my life for the journey. My goal is to reach San Francisco, but I have to pay to reach the goal.
Every small human activity like cooking, watching TV, or learning a new language needs these T-dollars. Few people die early due to unfortunate events like accidents or health issues, suddenly closing their time bank balance. Let’s call these people “Time Bankrupts” who are part of “chance events.” The chance events are unpredictable and can happen in our complex world.
People who are lucky enough to live can consume all T-dollars, thereby gaining many experiences. Can they make the most out of what they have?
Having the amount of 100 years of T-dollars doesn’t mean you can use it all. There are a few caveats here. One of them is the sleep tax.
Sleep Tax
Germany puts a TV & Radio tax on everyone in Germany whether they watch TV or listen to public radio stations. It is designed with good intentions to keep the media neutral and to avoid media houses influencing political outcomes in the country. The drawback with the German radio tax is you can’t opt out.
Coming to the time, one needs to give rest to their body & brain by sleeping. Without proper sleep or reduced sleep, one quickly wears & tears their body. In the long run, it reduces your life expectancy and makes you a potential “Time Bankrupt.” So, to enjoy T-dollars, one should rest well. Like the German radio tax(Rundfunkbeitrag), One cannot avoid time sharing to sleep.
An average person spends 7–9 hours of sleep. Take a median of 8 hours of sleep, which leads to 2920 hours in a year or 292000** hours in 100 years. Given there are 8760 hours in a year (365 days), an average human pays 33 years of their T-dollars⏳ to sleep.
(292000 / 8760) = 33.33 years # Rounded to two decimal pointsSo even though one has a gross time of 100 years, we are only left with 66.67 net years of T-dollars to spend. Like sleep tax, another factor can deplete T-dollars; I call it “time inflation,” which we explore next.
** You can argue in old age, one sleeps less. It is true, but for the sake of simplicity, let us assume people have a uniform sleep.
Time Inflation
A human being mainly spends time obtaining experiences. Those experiences may come from personal life, work life, relationships, travel, etc. A person can enjoy experiences the most while they are young. Also, the intrinsic curiosity of understanding the world keeps their joy levels high. Once they grow old and body age, they lose their appetite for new experiences. It is still possible to re-kindle those child-like pleasures, but not to the full extent like a younger self.
The T-dollars ⏳ that one has in their time bank will inflate with age, which means they lose their value as time passes. The pleasures** are not so enjoyable for the same amount of time spent in old age, and it is inevitable. So youth is when we can earn most of our joyful experiences.
Taking out sleep tax and time inflation leaves few active years. In the next section, we talk about the “time pirates”; the factors that can deplete those years.
**Pleasures are highly subjective and can vary from person to person.
Time Pirates
Pirates can steal time like money. Some of them who always try to steal your T-dollars ⏳ are below:
- Online ads & offline ads
- People who sell news & gossip
- Endless consumption of products & data
The entire world wants to sell products & information to people. It can start from waking up until we sleep with ad campaigns, endorsements, news, and sale offers. These factors can form a consumption chain that needs real dollars ($) or T-dollars.
There are many ways one can invest their time. We will explore them in the upcoming section.
Investing Time Currency
One can invest time currency in several ways. The below-listed ways (but not limited to) will give good returns for your T-dollars.
- Reading books
- Physical exercise
- Meditation
- Cooking
- Learning new languages & skills
It is tough to stick to the time scheduling plans because of the endless noise created by the third-parties. Therefore, one needs to relentlessly practice and culture micro habits around investing T-dollars. Those habits can bring decent experiences in a short time and also teaches spending time on investing time.
Conclusion
This article is a thought experiment to treat time as a currency and noise in life as the pirates who steal valuable time for nothing. You got only one life, and there’s no found way you can earn more.
I believe the time is not here to spend. It is here to either invest or appreciate life.
