Time over money
Money — as a means to experience or flaunt luxury (five star hotels , owning a mansion, expensive blazer etc) — never excited me. Infact, I sort of have an aversion to it and I find myself experience joy and comfort in minimalism and modesty.
But I am very keen on earning enough money to achieve financial independence — that’s one of the key short term goals of me and my wife to achieve by 2022 (before we turn 35).
- It buys us freedom from paycheck-to-paycheck life — increases our ability to take risk, lets us pursue some passions will out worrying about short-term revenue potential etc
- It buys us time — time over money
Time over money
Why am I so gung-ho about buying time with Money?
Unlike money, time if finite and we can’t get it back once spent. So, it’s precious, and how well we use it defines how well we lived. So, optimizing for time and putting ‘time over money’ makes sense. And I guess, most of us already know this or agree with this.
But ironically, almost everyone around me are like me — they put money before time — in most of their day-to-day things.
- When trying to book a flight, sorting it by ‘Cheapest’ and never by ‘quickest’
2. Spending 10 minutes to find a 480px movie that comes with umpteen ad-interruptions over a HD movie available in Youtube at $2 — here my per hour value is not even $12 dollars.
3. Taking an Uber ‘Express Pool’ over UberX to save $5 thought it takes 15 more min.
4. Spending a weekend doing nothing over spending some money to make the same weekend memorable — traveling or trying a new activity.
5. Many more more
I need to be more conscious of my time and shouldn’t take it for granted. In couple of months, I will update if my spending habits have changed and more importantly, if I am leading a more intentional life optimizing for time and happiness.
