Time Well Spent

“Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind…No person hands out their money to passer-by, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”

About 20 centuries back, Stoic Philosopher Seneca said this, and what is incredible is that it feels even more relevant today. 

Typically when we talk of spending, we refer to it in the context of Time and Money. However, the way we treat both of them is very different. 

We’re careful about how we spend our money. We plan how we have to spend, save and invest our money. We keep track of how our money at all times. 

But with time, our approach is not as efficient. Unlike money, we never think about time from the perspective of intrinsic value. 

Just this evening, during a conversation, I told my son that we start every day with a bank balance of 1440 units of currency, and this currency keeps getting spent through the day. So do we invest this currency in a way that gives us a better return in the future, or do we spend it in a purposeless routine being unmindfully busy?

If you want to figure out the value of time in a completely different and radical way, take 5 minutes of your time to go through this blog Wait But Why by Tim Urban. Money, even if we lose it, we can always earn it back. But time is a finite commodity. Once it is gone, it is gone. There is no getting it back.

We all have a choice about how we spend our time.

We can either let it flow by or be mindful and intentional about how we spend every moment at our disposal.

When we invest our time tending to ourselves, our relationships, and building skills that take us towards our goals, we enjoy the benefit of fulfillment and satisfaction. When we do things that add value, it is always time well spent.