Time

Happy New Year! When is it too late to wish people Happy New Year? Does it run in tandem when it becomes out of place to make New Year jokes?... Asking for a friend. Anyway, I’ve never been one for New Year resolution’s, I don’t get them. If you want to make a change in your life why would you wait for a date or specific time when you can just get started? Why not start immediately if the resources are available to you? But this year, I’ve had a slight change of heart. I’ve started a year-long book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Now that’s a mouthful of a title, but it’s been a great read so far. The authors, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, aim to reintroduce Stoic philosophy into our daily lives reconnecting us to the ancient wisdom of self-mastery and perseverance.

Every day’s meditations have been fascinating to read but it was Day 3 which struck a chord with me: Be Ruthless to Things That Don’t Matter. On the surface, you would think to not waste time and effort to those tasks we encounter in our day-to-day. However, I had a deeper think about this (as you do when you’re an overthinker) and thought about procrastination and time management.

After further reflection, I realised a lot of what I want and/or need to do is not usually done because I have poor time management. Well, had (I’m also trying more positive reinforcement this year too).

“Time is money,” but is time money? Well, no. You can save money, put it away with a bank or in our mattresses’. But we can’t save time by the same or similar means. We can build interest with our money, but time compounds differently. Time is a currency which is always being spent. It’s a currency which can be donated to someone or activity but can’t be bought for ourselves. We can only buy someone else’s, but it doesn’t become ours, their donation doesn’t add to our “wallet” increasing the wealth we already have.

We all start off rich with it, although some people’s wealth is larger than others. It’s a truly private commodity where no one in this world can accurately tell you how much you have. That in of itself makes it invaluable. All we know is that it’s constantly being spent like the subscription service you’re not quite sure when you joined but can’t be bothered to look into and cancel, you instead just enjoy the service. Then again, I suppose if we knew how much we had it would cheapen the experience of life, it would be a cheat code.

Okay, so we know, time is constantly being spent and we don’t know how much of it we have left. Then, why don’t we value it more? Why are some of us idle moment to moment? I’m not suggesting to live life as though it’s your last moments on Earth (with everything that has transpired recently that prediction sounds less and less far-fetched) I’m suggesting maybe it’s time with adjusted our priorities and consider what it is that really matters.

So, be a wise investor of your time. Know when to be selfish with it and know when to be charitable with it too. You can invest your time in anything, why not start with you?