Wow, That’s What Freedom Feels Like
Let’s get a better idea about the most precious luxury on Earth
Today’s Friday and it’s the first time in 10 years I don’t go around and say “TGIF!” to everyone I meet.
I woke up at 9.30 a.m. and casually made breakfast. Today’s my day off.
Todays’ my day off because I’ve scheduled it this way. I decided to rest today after 4 days of work, and then work a little bit more on Saturday and call it a week well done.
I can do this because I mostly work for myself now. I decide when to work and when to rest. My only boss is my muse — as Elizabeth Gilbert said, as a creator, you must be ready when your muse arrives to give you all the ideas for your next big hit. I’m always available for my muse, and I’m creating more quality content than ever.
How to get hold of the most precious luxury on Earth — time?
A bigger picture on costs
If you aren’t familiar with opportunity cost, it’s a great concept in economics which helps us to grasp the true value of what we have forgone when we make a choice.
Say you have to choose between Mcdonald’s or a salad for lunch. You might think that the cost of choosing Mcdonald’s will be the £5.49 meal deal. But it’s not just that, it’s also the calories you could’ve saved from choosing the salad and other health benefits.
Similarly, if you choose a salad, your opportunity cost might also include the lack of satisfaction, warmth and happiness (my feeling is strong).
Opportunity cost is a concept that shows your true cost when you make one choice over the other. By looking at life that way, some of the ‘right choices’ can have a very high hidden cost that we didn’t think of before.
I might be earning less but I’m so much richer
When I quit my job it might seem that I’ve lost big earning abilities. That’s very true, but I feel that the cost of staying in that industry (my former employers are all great, the cost lies in the nature of employment), the true cost for me becomes too high.
It costs me my time, my mental health and my freedom.
Most jobs are like that actually, not just mine. As long as you’re working for someone else, your salary compensates both your performance and your freedom. Literally, someone else becomes the boss of your life.
So actually, the opportunity cost of me choosing my free life now is low. The only cost is money, and money is the easiest asset to gain.
Money is cheap
It sounds a bit arrogant to say money is easy and cheap. Because for many, making ends meet and getting fed is a real struggle.
I totally get it, I was on that path for a while after I graduated.
People should do what they need to do to get their basic needs met. This is one of the reasons why I ended up working for someone else. I don’t regret one minute of it because it elevated me out of my poverty at the time. I was relying on my friends and family to have a roof above me.
So I felt wonderful when I got my job and actually managed to pay rent month-by-month.
The question is when do you stop pursuing basic needs. There’s no end to this, a cheap bicycle turns to a sports car, a rental flat into a mansion, we can get better and bigger things. But they are all merely basic needs.
Money becomes cheap when your basic needs are fulfilled to a decent standard. Usually, at that point, other things become ridiculously expensive.
They are the intangibles.
Intangibles are the costly assets that you can only see the price using the concept of opportunity costs.
Time is the most expensive intangibles
There are many intangible assets, such as knowledge, friendship, love, mental health, etc. They are much easier than money to lose and much harder than money to regain.
Of all intangibles, the most expensive is the time. You are always losing time and can never regain it.
It’s funny I learned this from the book The 100-Year Life. Why is time still expensive if we can live for a whole century?
When we employ the three-stage models of studying, working and retiring, we place all relaxation and enjoyment at the point you retire. But if we can live to 100 years old, there are physical, financial and other constraints for retirement to be what it looks like at our parents’ generation.
For one, we are going to have to work till much later in life, perhaps 70 or even 80 years old for us to have enough saved up for retirement. We are continuously losing our prime time to work.
If we focus on making money and being someone’s basic bitch for 60 years, we might be able to make great money but our opportunity costs, especially the time cost, is very high.
So we have to know how to make the opportunity cost for working lower.
My model now
When I look at my bosses, I respect them a lot because they are reliable and always available to everyone. This includes their clients, their bosses and their colleagues. Some are also available to their family and friends, but not everyone manages that within a tight schedule.
Everyone wants a piece of them.
For me, it seems like as you gain more money, social prestige and responsibility, the opportunity cost of work — i.e. the cost of time, becomes very high.
Seeing that, I think it’s better if I’m less available to everyone and more available to myself. So I have time, the expensive intangible, to myself.
My model now is to combine retirement with work — to include the precious spare time reserved in retirement in my everyday life now. I am scrapping that three-stage model.
I am not saving time to be used in a distant future, especially if I still have 30 years or more of working life. I am enjoying the time saved from overworking now.
In practice, I start writing, working on things I care deeply about and creating content. Those are work that I am very motivated and excited to do, so for me, work and freedom are further blended into one. Work is no longer taking away my time because if I had spare time in the past (or in my retirement), I would’ve done what I’m doing now anyway.
That’s empowerment.
A very specific example that shows the opportunity cost of insufficient time is that I used to go to this fancy gym in London (like Soul Cycle) where they have an action-packed 45-minute spinning class. People tend to start leaving the studio before the class ends when we are stretching and cooling down because they need to get to the shower quickly, get dressed, and rush back to their desk.
Stretching is important! Cooling down is great! Enjoying the hot shower and putting on makeup mindfully is fantastic. Now I have this time because I control the time. No one’s going to tell me off if I go for a swim at 3 pm, as long as I have done my to-do list, I’m all good. I’m responsible for my own self.
Gosh, isn’t that a liberating feeling?
How much is your money-making life costing you? That’s a good question to ask if you feel dissatisfied, cold and unhappy — just like that salad which seems to be super good for you, but might not actually be great.
Read more about intentional living by the wise young woman called Midori by the Sea (me!):
