Time and Money Trap

I Love Money

But… Isn’t the love of money the root of all evil?

Sorry folks, I beg to disagree. I just disproved it.

I love money. There is no denying it. Contrary to what has been embedded in most people’s subconscious, money (or the love of it) is not the root of all evil. It’s the lack of money that is the culprit.

Imagine Haiti without money pouring into the island after the disastrous earthquake. It would be a terrible world indeed.

I Love Time

I love time — lots and lots of it. I’m talking about free time.

Free time allows me to stroll around any place I want while the rest of the my friends are sitting on their office chair waiting for 5:00 PM to tick so they could punch the time card and so that they could stroll around like I do after a long day’s work.

Free time allows me to watch my kid growing right before my eyes. Unlike a remote control dad, this activity is so important to me that I am willing to give up all the business deals in the world just to have time playing with my little monkey.

Time and Money Dilemma

But time and money are not always best of friends like man and dog.

Let me explain it this way.

How do you make money?

For most of us, we make money by exchanging our time and skills for it. In other words, trading time for money.

A programmer makes money by coding, analyzing business processes, and following instructions from the development manager. An accountant makes money by scrutinizing financial information and making intelligible conclusions about it for business decision making. One of the ways a lawyer makes money is by playing the devil’s advocate, finding faults, and dissecting the Law to protect the client from potential punishment.

In all of the examples above, a person is trading time for money. For most people, this is the default business model, so to speak, they follow to earn money. In many cases this is fine – you get paid for what you work for.

And, ideally, this leads to…

• More work means more money
• More projects mean more money
• More clients mean more money

More money means more happiness, right?

Wrong!

Here’s why…

• More work means more money, but less time spent on other activities like:
  • a cup of good coffee with a friend
  • a good physical exercise
  • relaxation and meditation to remove the stress out
  • creative thinking
  • just plain do nothing
• More projects mean more money, but there is a limit on the number of projects you can handle.
• More clients mean more money, but clients are people — and people can mean problems. You can only entertain a few of them before your sanity explodes.

Of course, the less time you spend working means less money in the bank account.

This is the consequence of trading time for money. Since time is limited (a mere 24 hours in a day), it is not always a good idea to exchange your time for money. Exchanging time for money is bad for you. And it limits your happiness up to a certain point.

Time-Money Solution

Is there a way around this problem?

Of course there is.

First, you need to understand that time is more important than money. As a matter of fact, time is more valuable than money.

Money can be made from ZERO, but lost time can never be recovered.

In the next article, I’ll show you some of ways money can be made without trading time for it.

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