The real price of life is not money, not material possessions. But time.
Saw this tweet today by James Clear (author of Atomic Habits):
Needless commitments are more wasteful than needless possessions. Possessions can be ignored, but commitments are a recurring debt that must be paid for with your time and attention. “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”—Henry David Thoreau
Indeed.
We were born rich, and we all die a pauper. In the currency of time. It made me wonder, why do I want to earn more, be rich and financially free? For the money? No, it’s for the time, the freedom from “needless commitments”, or stuff you don’t care about but have to because you have to make a living. Because we chose security. But:
“No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.”—Maya Mendoza
So being rich leads to freedom which leads to time which leads to your dreams which leads to a well-lived life? Perhaps. If you know how to do it right.
As poet and writer Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
I’d say, from hereon, nobody will ever make me do anything that I don’t want to. That whatever the amount of life I exchange for something or someone, will be worthy of that chunk of life gone.
I remember hearing Naval Ravikant say how we should set a hourly aspirational rate on our time, even if it’s not for work. So that if going to the store to exchange a broken product saves you less than your hourly aspirational rate, you shouldn’t bother doing it. Give that product away. Or discard it.
In that same manner, for whatever gig, appointment, commitment or event that I’m deciding to go for next time, I’m asking this question: “Is this thing going to be worth spending that amount of life I’m exchanging it for?” It’s not just time in a general sense, it’s your life. A small piece of it, but still, your life. Will you give away a chunk of your life for it?
Life. Time. The only possession we ever got.