Our Time Is The Ultimate Asset In Life.
Nothing else comes close. Well, almost.
Actually, health is a close second. They share the same nature. We are born with 100%, and they work on a deduction basis. That means we have less of them as we mature into adulthood. That can be scary. Some might think it is unfair.
Indeed, it can be unfair. When we are growing up, our maturity doesn’t allow us to grapple with the importance of time and health. We waste our time on video games instead of figuring out what interests us in terms of studies, and for food — That’s easy. We put junk into our mouths.
As my Aunt always says — “Well, age punishes what youth forgives. The payback will come, don’t worry boys.”.
She is right about it. She has always been right because she never bothers to sugar-coat the realities of life. As an Entrepreneur starting from 0, she has seen it all.
One of her best lessons was on time. And she was great at quantifying things to make them more concrete and frightening. She would always chime that whether we do something or nothing, 86,400 seconds will be expensed from our life account.
Trouble is where we are spending it.
And she loved the story of Achilles. Her greatest takeaway, when we spoke, was her biggest fear. That was a natural biological expiry. It is one thing to know that we will expire one day. It is another when we know which day.
So, she shares Achilles’s sentiments of amassing as many toys, awards, accolades as possible. She works on multiple ventures at the same time. Even though she never had enough time for herself, she never felt so.
Her exact words were, “Time never waits for anyone. It is up to us to inject meaning into the Time we have, and never had.”.
I adore her and treasured every single interaction we had, no matter how short that might be. I always felt that I could learn a year’s worth of experience within 15 minutes. At the very least, working our ass off to pursue our dreams sounds way better than study hard and getting a high-paying job.
From this angle, I realized an important lesson I learned from my Aunt when I was very young. And it never came to me till I started working.
Our time is the ultimate asset. It is up to us to decide how we want to derive maximum value from our time expense. As I mentioned, the 15 minutes I spent learning from my Aunt is at least 1000x more valuable than listening to my teachers in school.
In fact, investing 60 minutes in school gave me lower returns from 15 minutes with my Aunt.
That is because it is never about homework or promoting to the next level. There isn’t any moment that is tied to finding a high-paying job either. The reason people accumulate skills without passion is that it is imposed upon us.
It is that simple.
With my Aunt, time became so valuable. It is not only because it is a sacred commodity. It is also because I got way more exposure to kids my age (then) had, and through that, I understood the language of business as well as the need for hard work.
I knew I was neurologically wired to love the competition of running a business. I love to bring people along and start competing. My Aunt believed that business empires are lost in the 6 pm — 10 pm when Entrepreneurs start resting on their laurels.
She walks her talk, and I was beside her at times. When I had the chance after afternoon school, I would stick around her office and watch her having client meetings after office hours. She would be the most ambitious Sales revenue hunter in the organization.
She never stopped learning. As she always says, “The moment we stopped learning, we are immediately dumb.”.
I never doubted.
She would have stacks of books all around her office desk, kitchen table, and toilets. The book topics span across various functions of a business, such as Management Accounting, Sales, Taxation.
And she reads multiple books at the same time. Whenever a question pops into her head, she would leave the current book she is reading open, bookmark it (that was 2 decades ago), and open the other book to find what she needed.
She was never reading the book. She is always grasping the spirit and key message of the book. She doesn’t read. She understands.
Watching her read for her personal growth made me wonder why I am memorizing to pass an exam. It made absolutely zero sense to me. What a waste of time, I thought.
Then, a lightning bolt hit me.
Time is an asset to us when we are utilizing it aggressively to pursue our goals during this lifetime. The pursue of what matters injects value into our time.
It is entirely up to us.
I watched my Aunt flipping multiple books concurrently, and I stared at my homework. One thing clicked.
If I am too weak to go against the system, and I have to take examinations, then I might as well be the top student. I have to study anyway. Besides, learning how to excel is a way more valuable skill set to acquire over time compared to learning how to scrape through.
That was one of the few inflection points of my life.
What is yours when it comes to Time?
Smart Living Is About Time Utility.
Aldric
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About the Author:
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure.
Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.
Because simplicity adds value.
And with clarity — We grow.
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