Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. ~ Jim Rohn
We each have but one life-time to experience all that this world has to offer.
If ‘time is money’, how much care do we put into how we spend it?
The movie “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake, puts the concept of “time is money” into a fresh perspective. The characters inhabit a world where the days, hours, minutes and seconds they have remaining alive are displayed on their forearms. Their clock doesn’t start until they turn 25 years old, then they get one year free before time starts ticking away toward their deaths. The rich get to live forever.
Justin’s character says,”I’d say ‘Your money or your life’, but your money is your life”, because what they earn or spend is time… their life-times. This film demonstrates in a dramatic way that we trade our lives for the things we buy. We trade our lives to earn the time/cash too.
The beauty of this film is that sometimes fiction can show us the truth more clearly than we can see it in reality. This is a movie, yet out here in the real world, trading our life-times for money/stuff is reality already, but the truth of it is obscured with currency. People are thinking dollars, instead of time. Money is a representation of value, but it’s illusory; it’s deceptive.
Valuing Life-Time
Our time is limited, so it’s up to us to make our lives awesome and spend our time wisely. Being minimalists means that we are taking care to assess what is essential to us; to refine our possessions and reduce our purchases so we’re not wasting our lifetimes to earn and spend on things that are not truly meaningful to us.
Another truth from the film and from life, is that more wealth means you don’t have to rush. Money bends time. When you enjoy the luxury of fearlessly taking your time, you can think more clearly. You can make plans and strategize, rather than accept any old offer that comes along. You can wait until the situation is most favourable and then make the best move. Being a minimalist definitely helps in that department.
We each have a choice with money; earning more of it, or needing less of it.
The beautiful thing about abundant minimalism is that the less you need, the more you have… more time, more freedom, more choice in life. By refining and reducing our needs (which mostly are actually not true needs, but merely desires) we expand our options exponentially.
Now is the time
Time is a strange thing. We can imagine the past and the future, but they are like dreams. They are as changeable as a cloud. Our memories are never perfect so we recreate the past as best as we can. The future is ethereal. It may turn out exactly as we planned, or hopefully even better… yet
We only really ever have today – now – this moment.
Savour it. Make it wonderful.