Your Money, Your Life

If we stop to consider how we really earn money, we will take greater care of what we do with it the moment money gets into our hands. Our entire life can be expressed in hours literally. Let’s say you live to be 95, you would have lived 24 x 365 x 95 = 832,200 hours. Each day that passes, you have 24 hours less. Each week that passed, 168 hours is gone, never to return. If you have a job, you are trading your time for your money. You are expected to put in at least 40 hours per week in your job, 160 hours per week. As you climb higher, or expect to climb higher, you progressively put in more hours per week, ranging from 45 to 70 depending on how high you want to climb.

Add to this number of hours your hours of commute and lunch hour. If you spend 4 hours to and fro to get to work, that means you are away from home for 13 hours per day. You live home at 5.30 AM and return by 6.30 PM. Some folks, leave home before the kids wake up and return after the kids have gone to bed. Before you know it, your kids have grown and left home. The most common regret on the rocking chair is not spending enough time with loved ones, especially the kids in their growing-up years. Some men grow apart from their children and cannot get on well in their old age as they lived worlds apart for so long.

It is a double tragedy to spend all your working life working hard and having nothing to show for it. You trade your life for your money, and then give the money away, literally giving your life away.

Your time is precious, and the moment your time is up, you simply have to take a bow. When we look at money from the perspective of literally trading our life for it, we start to spend with a purpose or a mission in mind rather than give in to emotions and impulses. Our lives should have a meaning and a purpose. It is our job to work towards fulfilling that purpose, not spend our working years paying bills and getting in and out of consumer debt. Having the end in mind is very crucial before we start any endeavor. Seeing how it goes is leaving it to chance, shooting first before attempting to aim.

Someone was asked what he would do if he won a million dollars. His answer – apply it to his debts as far as it would go. The next step is obvious. Accumulate a fresh set of debt.

Knowing where you are going gives context to your actions or lack of action. If you do not know where you are heading financially, or any other department of your life, any road will take you there.

Leaving home to commute to work is a risk we take every single day. Some do not make it back home. The reward for our labor should be handled with care, channeling it in the direction of our dreams rather than spending it on what is here today, and gone tomorrow.