TIME vs MONEY
If your boss told you that you will have to spend 10 extra hours at work and get a 25% financial incentive added to your salary…would you do it???.
According to me this topic can have different answers for different stages of your life. For those of you, who are just starting your business or your job, forget about leisure time.OF COURSE HAPPINESS COMES FIRST, BUT ONCE YOU FIND THE JOB OR THE BUSINESS THAT TRULY MAKES YOU HAPPY, STICK WITH IT AND FORGET ABOUT LONG VACATIONS OR PARTIES. THIS IS THE TIME TO BE A LITTLE GREEDY FOR MONEY AND WORK LONG HOURS FOR THE GROWTH AND SUCCESS OF YOUR BUSINESS OR FOR A PROMOTION IN YOUR 9–5 JOB.PERIOD.
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy you the boat that can take you there. But going there alone is no fun. Think about that for a second. You can have enough money to buy a private jet and travel around the world but if you don’t have anyone to celebrate this success with because you pushed everyone out in the process, IT’S NO FUN.
I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago and I came across this research article from UBC (University of British Columbia) where the researchers measured people’s individual thoughts on the topic - time versus money. The participants were asked: Which factor most closely reflects your own values? and then the answers were divided into two responses — Tina’s and Maggie’s.
1. Now the Tina’s of the world said they values their time more than their money…For example, Tina would rather work fewer hours and make less money, than work more hours and make more money.
2. And, the Maggie’s of the world said they value their money more than their time…For example, Maggie would rather work more hours and make more money, than work fewer hours and have more time.
Now, before we dive any deeper into this discussion, let’s all understand what time means in this context. No matter how long you work you will still have the same amount of time if you stayed at home and played fortnite. By this I mean, you won’t die sooner and have “less time” if you spend your time working. The question is which factor do you value more and which one will you be willing to make the best of. I believe anyone who chooses vacation over work whenever they can, really needs to re think what they are doing. Now, I am not saying that wanting to go on vacation is a bad thing, everybody needs a little break. What I am trying to say here is that if you crave for your vacations so bad, and would always choose that over working, you need to really wonder whether that job is the one for you and whether it is making you happy. You should love the process of doing the work more than the result. People want the result so bad that they pick a job that pays more instead of a job that they would enjoy much more but pays less. If you do not enjoy what you are doing, why are you doing it. This is for people who have graduated from high school and are trying to make a living for themselves. It’s not for students who do not want to go to school so they feel like they should drop out. I went through that exact same phase. I didn’t want to go to school and wasn’t finding the right motivation to study, but college was always a goal for me. So, no matter how much I hated school at that point in time, I knew I had to and wanted to plough through with good grades and get into college. So back to the people who do not enjoy their job, you might come back and say “Oh you don’t understand, I have a family to take care of, I have huge debts, etc.” I get it, its hard.
“AND??”
“SO??”
“What are you doing about it”.
A lot of people these days complain rather than do and are ungrateful. If you compare how hard it was to make money 50 years ago to now, you would be grateful. If you were put in your grandparent’s shoes for 1 DAY, you would be grateful. One to 400 trillion. That’s the probability of you being born a human, AND YOU WERE!!. We are the smartest creatures on this planet. Maybe not the wisest, but definitely the smartest. And yes, they are some bad human beings, but there is bound to be some bad among the 7 billion of us. So what are you complaining for? One to 400 trillion. To put that into proportion and perspective, the chances of winning the lottery are 1 to 175 million. So, you are more likely to win the lottery 2,285 times than be alive today. That’s nothing short of a miracle. On top of that, this is arguably one of the best times for an entrepreneur to be alive. Or anyone creative for that matter. Sure there are problems, but guess what, there will always be problems. There is no such thing as a perfect life or a perfect world. But you can work hard to make your life much happier. At the end of the day, if you spend too much time working and not spending quality time with the ones you love you will regret it when you are lying on your deathbed and you realize that you spent too much time worrying about profits, or growth and were so into maximization rather than satisficing, that you forgot about your happiness. But then, it’s too late.
