“I am an Intentional Learner. I own my time and my money. I realize that both are finite and I decide how I spend them. I do not allow either to limit my future.”
Time and money feel infinite. When we misuse them, it’s easy to say things like “there’s always tomorrow to get that done,” or “there’s always next week’s paycheck.” Time and money feel like rivers we can dip into when we need more. Which is only partly true.
“You’re going to die.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Money is finite. Spend it wisely.
Let’s work an example. Pretend you earn the national average income over your career. That’s $50,000 per year. The average working lifetime is about 40 years which means your job will produce a total of $2 million. You get to spend $2 million over your life and then you’re out.
Except for interest.
You can turn that $2 million into more if you invest it. Great. Maybe you’ll even reach a point where the interest from your investments replaces the $50,000 (you’d need about $800,000 invested at 6%). Sweet place to be, your money now works harder than you do!
But $800,000 is a sizable portion of your total lifetime income. So is sending your kid to college and paying off your student loans and buying a house. Are you SURE you want to pay interest on that $40,000 sports car loan?
It’s not about the numbers. You could always increase your income, but you’d find ways to scale the outflow as well.
Time is even more finite.
There is no investment that earns interest to buy you more time. If you live to be 100 years old, you’ll have 36,500 days. 5,200 weekends. 100 Thanksgiving Holidays.
What are you doing today? 36,499. How about tomorrow? 36,498.
Is every day going to be the best day of your life? Hardly. But if most days aren’t good, what are you waiting for? Change!
- If you’re in school, enjoy the fact that these are the only 1,460 days where it’s OK to not know everything. Find something to be curious about and study it because you want to, not because you’re required to earn a grade.
- If you’re working, spend those precious days doing what matters to you. Take care of providing for your family. Invest, but also play.
I can’t tell you what matters. That’s for you to decide. But don’t spend your precious time and money reacting to everyone else’s agenda. Spend them on things that matter.
The Intentional Academy is here to help. We’re asking questions that will guide you to finding what matters and achieving it. We’re sharing tactics that will buy you more freedom to spend your time and money the way that you feel is most important. If it’s helping, let us know by leaving a comment and hitting those “like” and “share” buttons!
