Money Is Worthless
Don’t waste another second chasing something you don’t really need!
Recently I have had several conversations with people around the extra hours they are putting in a work and the feelings of discontent this was creating for them. As we peeled back the layers of the onion it became clear that money, or more importantly what a lack of money meant to their belief around self-worth and societies view of them in a wider social context was at the core of this black cloud in their minds.
I have always thought of myself as a person who doesn’t prioritize money over other things. Yet I have given thousands of free hours to my various workplaces over the course of my career, I would often lie to myself and pretend that this was just out of the goodness of my heart, that by doing this I was a better person and helping to make a difference in the world around me. Now I do still believe that some of my rationale for doing these extra hours was due to my values of compassion, empathy and caring. However, I also accept that these ‘freebies’ were motivated by greed, envy, fear and shame. By working extra, I expected to get ahead quicker, I wanted to receive more reward for my effort, I was afraid that if I didn’t do more someone else would get ahead of me and I as I grew older I became more ashamed that I hadn’t achieved more than those around me. At the heart of this was my fear that without money I was not a success, that my position in society that I felt I deserved would be jeopardized and that I would be cast out by the people around me to starve in the wilderness.
One of the things that significantly shifted my perspective on this was the birth of my daughter, and some serious self-reflection. As I watch her grow and change at a rate that was incompressible to me prior to fatherhood, I truly understand the concept that every moment is precious. Every time I prioritize chasing wealth and status over spending time with my family I am missing out on something that makes me happy to the very core of my being, that feels innately right for me as a human being. I truly believe that money is worthless, it’s a tool that I can use, but I don’t need it, in fact chasing it will lead me away from living a life in line with my core values. Time, every second of it, is the most important resource I have and I am no longer willing to spend it so cheaply on shit that doesn’t matter.
If you’re feeling some resistance to the idea that money is not worth the time you invest into chasing it, don’t worry you’re not alone. I struggled with the concept and still sometimes find myself drifting back into neediness around financial success. Its ok you’re not an evil materialistic weasel, society constantly bombards us with messages that money equals success and happiness and survival.
Money Equals Survival – can you eat it for dinner?
Did people survive before money was invented around 5000 B.C? Yes, they did!
Could you live today without money? There are people in the remote corners of the world who exist without money, so it is possible. Let’s compromise however and say that in today’s modern world money is necessary to operate at most levels of society. What I do challenge is the amount of money you think you need to survive on. If you sit down and work out how much cash you need to survive and take that away from the amount you currently earn. The difference between the two is likely what you now spend on being comfortable and on chasing external validation from material possessions.
I wrote in my article around neediness about the possessions I currently own i.e. my boat. Like you I have surrounded myself with things that make my life easier, that facilitate me doing a range of different activities that I enjoy. What I truly believe though is that none of them are necessary for me to be happy and that if I invest time into them I need to be certain that the return is worth what I am giving up. Feel free to buy useless shit, have your Netflix account, a boat, a house or any other goal that you have in your life but take responsibility for what you’re giving up and be sure that the return is worth the investment.
During my own journey and talking to others I have discovered some really great ways to start taking control of your most precious resource and ensure you’re spending your time wisely.
Daily Breakdown
I have done this with my teams at work, in particular when they have talked about being too busy and under stress. By sitting down and actually going through your days activities you can start to get a sense of what you spend your time doing and what you can cut out to better utilize that time. If you can get someone else to help you, even better as they can give you a much more objective view on this. The table below is just a basic example of something you could put together.
Key points
Be honest with yourself where you spend your time.
Be detailed.
Can be used for your entire day from when you wake to when you go to bed.
Be ruthless when rating an activities value. Does it make a significant difference to my wellbeing?
Develop an overview of an average week and use this as a basis for identifying low value activities you are spending your time too much time on.
Hourly Rate
If you’re struggling a bit to gauge an activities value consider turn it into an hourly rate. One advantage of money is that we are able to quantify it. If I look at my bank account I can see how much I have and then translate that fairly easily to what I can buy with it. Same for my pay packet, I can look at it and see what my perceived value is to the company I work for. For example, if I say I an hour of my time is worth $160 based on my current salary, net worth etc. I then look at a particular activity and think:
Is it worth a $160 of my time?
Would I pay someone else $160 to do this?
What activity would be a better use for that $160?
I find this works quite well as I struggle sometimes with the concept of measuring time as it seems free and though sub consciously I know I have a finite amount of it, I struggle with the concept of measuring it on a daily basis.
A practical example of when the above is great to apply is when you find yourself at work doing lots of extra hours for free. If take my $160 hourly rate and apply it to my own career, I have given tens of thousands of dollars of my time away. Some of it I gladly donated as it was in line with my values around helping others, empathy, community and integrity. I can’t say that for all of it though, and its time I spent that I could have used for other more valuable things.
80/20 Your Life
The Pareto Principle is widely known, it states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. This can be applied to your life to help maximize authenticity, acceptance and self-fulfilment. Using some of the advice in this article or any other tool you have found that resonates with your thinking; identify 20% of the activities in your day that give you the most value. Once you have done this, aim to spend 80% of your time on these activities. It can be hard at times as life often gets in the way, but just the conscious effort to follow this principle will result in your spending more time on what is truly important for your own wellbeing. Longer term this can be a great way to identify a career or lifestyle that will support you doing this. I love working with people and helping them develop and grow, so I started a coaching business. It’s still work and there are parts of it I don’t love (like admin) but overall it allows me to devote time I used to spend watching Netflix’s etc. to doing something that gives me tremendous value.
Hopefully by now you’re already thinking about how important it is not to waste time, and how you can shift your own life to take better advantage of this most precious resource. If you’re still a bit unsure, there is another event that happened recently that again hammered home the message for me. A friend of mine, who I have known for a while was diagnosed with cancer, obviously this sucks and is a terrible thing for anyone to have to go through. What however resonated with me was not the diagnosis, but her powerful response to it. The dignity, strength and passion she has embraced the situation and worked through something so challenging gave me hope and inspiration to not waste time when you never know how much is your account.
