Commentary by Uncle Mike
Dear www.notquiterightnews.com readers,
There is an old quote first used or attributed to the great author “Benjamin Franklin” in his famous book “Advice to a Young Tradesman”. “Time is Money”. It is actually so much more than money.
Grandpa Mike, still kicking COVID butt and taking nurses names at the nursing home shared some wisdom. It was Grandpa that said, “do those things you want to do now, because you won’t be able to do them later”. No greater truth can be told. That time you think you will have when you’re older, may be available. But can you do anything with it? Will you be too old to spend it doing all the things you wanted to do?
As you grow older, time becomes more important. When you realize you don’t have as much left in the future as you used in the past, time becomes the most critical asset in your life. It is a commodity (def. in this case: a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time) that is finite. You only have so much of it, and there will be no more.
If you make $20 hour, that pay is representative of your time. It is the value of your effort or the energy of work you perform. If you buy a $40,000 car, it takes you 1,600 hours of your time (without interest hours) to pay for that time. How much other time must you spend to pay off that car? That car cost you 40 hours of time, for 40 weeks. You can’t work 1,600 hours in one year at $25/hr only working to pay off the car. You have to use other hours to pay for other things. Food, loans, entertainment, and…. beer. You know, priorities greater than the car payment. You must ask yourself, is the car worth 1,600 hours of my time? The money you get paid from your work time is merely a conduit to use other time for other purpose. Time you want to spend doing things you earn. Family time, “me” time, or precious time. What is it worth?
Right now, people across the world are using time in millions of different ways. Available time they have on their hands. They can use it for picnics, streaming movies, video games, playing with children or pets, or working at something they choose to do. What if someone or something dictated what you must do with your time. What if you aren’t allowed to decide how your time is spent? What if you were told to do work they want you to do? What if you are told to go to war? After all, it’s your time. Why waste it on what someone else wants.
No one should tell you how to spend that asset. That is what freedom means. Free to do what you want with your time. If you are getting paid an adequate amount for your time, you are trading your work for what they need or want, for time that is yours. This is an acceptable arrangement.
What if your time is dictated to you? Let’s look at medical time. People are being told they need to spend time in line to get a shot that perhaps they really don’t want. How about spending any of your time in the hospital? Sometimes the trade of hospital time (chemo, radiation, or operations) affords you more valuable time. This is a trade of negative time to gain more positive time.
Does the government or your boss tell you what to do with your own your time? Their needs generally are negative time. Think of all the hours you work to pay taxes. There is such a thing as ‘Tax Freedom Day’. Every year, the Adam Smith Institute calculates the number of days the ‘average’ person works just to pay off their taxes. Tax Freedom Day usually is around 30 May, unless you are a corporation or poor. Then you don’t spend any time working to pay taxes. Poor or rich, it seems their time belongs to them. Those homeless people on the corner. All that time belongs to them. The rich corporate CEO that has tax loopholes, shelters and write offs. No taxes equals free time for them. It’s the people in between that find out their time is not theirs.
When you get older, there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to do all the things you want to do. You use all your life experience to prioritize what to do, when to do it, and who you do it with. This use of your time becomes incredibly valuable. No amount of money can replace the time you use for things you want to do. A life investing earned time should be used to do positive things.
I highly encourage you to do an evaluation of what is happening with your time. The time you are using today to earn freedom is limited. Are you spending it wisely? Are you getting everything you want from all your work? The money is a means to the end. The end, is priceless time spent doing what you want.
Your time is valuable, and it is finite. No Federal Reserve ‘time bank’ is going to arbitrarily add more time to your life account. Don’t waste it on would’ve, could’ve or should’ve. Don’t dwell on politics, confrontation, or negative behaviors. Time isn’t given to you, you earned it, so why waste it on negative time. Orient on the things that are important: play, family, friends, travel, learning, laughing and loving. These are things where time is well spent.
Understand you only have so much, so use it wisely. Time is too valuable to waste.
Thank you for spending it here. Now, go do something fun!
Uncle Mike
