Friday 19 May 2023

Time or money - which one do you prioritise?

In my experience, there are two types of people - the ones who prioritise time, and the ones who prioritise money - but what neither seem to realise, is that these are interchangeable.

So some people value time, and will do anything to save time - usually that means spending money to save time. You can save time by paying others to do chores, or by paying for tolls to avoid wasting time in traffic. But of course the money that is spent has usually been earned by working, which gets me to the other people:

The people who will spend time in order to make money: through work, or by saving money by spending their time - by cleaning themselves, or by taking the little roads that are free but take longer, or by driving further to find the cheaper petrol station - you get the gist.

What neither group seems to be aware of is that they are both doing the same thing - spending one in order to get the other.

Why is that important? Because you can only make conscious choices when you know that you are making a choice.

Mostly we will follow one road or the other unconsciously, following the "script" that our parents have followed. 

If our parents have grown up lacking money, their conscious or unconscious message will be about the importance of making, saving and having money.

And suddenly here we are, spending our life ensuring that we will "never" be poor - even if it means not having free time, not spending that time with our loved ones, always pursuing a hypothetical end-goal of financial freedom, at any cost.

Yet of the resources to pursue, it turns out that we can never have enough money to really feel free, and conversely, that time is always going to be limited - if we are lucky that means 80 or 90 years. 

I can't help but feel that though money is important to give us a minimum of independence, time is the one thing we can't multiply. The days we spend without our loved ones can never be made up for. 

So what is your priority? Do you put most days "in the bank" in order to spend a few privileged moments during weekends or holidays in the way you desire?

Or are you consciously choosing to use the time you have as much and as often as possible to be in the here and now with the people who really matter in your life?