At the moment, I am sitting in the office on a Sunday and have been for the last six hours or so, finishing material creation that I will need this week for training. With my workload so heavy of late, this was delegated to someone else to do partial prep, but they failed to do it properly, which means it all has to be redone from near scratch - requiring a translation from Finnish to English - and I don't speak Finnish very well. After this, it will be home to paint some walls that have to be done before window framing and cornices go up tomorrow morning.
I need a job to pay the bills and I am not one to live off government handouts anyway, but I am also not living in complete poverty financially, but I am living in poverty based on time. Due to everything that is going on simultaneously, I am time poor and falling into time debt - along with financial debt regarding the house renovation.
Often when we think of poverty, we look a the economic factors of it as this makes sense, since money is a resource that can buy other resources, including time. For example, if I had more money, I would be able to pay more tradespeople to work on the house rather than me doing it myself. If I had more money, I would better be able to pick and choose the work I do without having to commit to whatever arrives. If I had more money, I would be able to use my time to increase my level of health so that there would be either less down time, or more effective time spent.
If I had more money...
It is the internal "if" it seems, with money being a surrogate for resources. However, there is always going to be an opportunity cost of some kind, a trade-off where to have one thing is going to cost another, to chase all will be to be to spread oneself to thin and miss all, to spend too much time avoiding the uncomfortable ones will make getting the wanted ones less likely. Life is a constant position of accepting compromise in what we can do and have, whilst trying to enjoy what we actually do and have. This sets up a problem of constant scarcity and with the explosion of choice, we become even more aware of what we are missing out on.
I used an example the other day with colleagues while we were talking about cars with one of my colleagues buying a new car unseen and undriven, while another colleague thinks that is crazy. As a person who has bought two cars unseen and undriven in my life, I understand it well enough.
For example,
If there are three cars (eg. Audi, Mercedes, BMW) all in the same class and a person test drives all of them, each are going to have pros and cons. One will be more comfortable, while another more powerful. One will have more space, while another handles better or has a better entertainment system. No matter the final decision, gaining one trait of "best in class" will be bundled with another of potentially "worst in class" and that means, living without something.
We are constantly compromising and constantly living in some kind of psychological deficit, while from the outside looking in, another person in a different situation would just be happy to have a car. For example, I see this as a bit like my Hive stake, where a lot of users would want to have similar, but they may not be willing to forego the same as I have foregone over the years - with time spent being a very big one, which takes time away from other things.
However, as I was saying to someone recently, I see Hive and crypto in general as my way to "buy back" some of my time in the future, using the time I have invested now to earn. Time is a resource that can be invested and as they say, time is money, which means time invested well has earning potential - but that relationship can working reverse if the money is subsequently turned into time.
I have probably spent 10,000+ hours on this blockchain over the last 4 years and the hourly rate definitely doesn't make for pleasant viewing. But, I do think that the value of my total holdings might not have been possible if I had spent my time doing something else, as do not think it likely I would have to a third job to create resource availability to invest and even if I did - would I have invested it?
But, 10000 hours of work is likely to be somewhere around 5 years of "real work", but I couldn't have done the same with a real job, especially since I work daily on the blockchain, meaning weekends too. But, 5 years from now, what I have earned in the last 4 years could potentially outstrip everything I have earned in the last 10, 20 or ever - who knows. The trick is, being able to hold on until the value of the time I have spent now is worth more than what it was to spend it in the past. I have no idea what percentage increase that would require, but the "ROI" as to factor in all resources spent, including the time, energy, effort and what has been foregone along the journey.
How much is four years of time and effort worth to you?
I know what it is worth to me in terms of my current employment return, but I also know that what I get is unlikely to ever be enough to truly be financially comfortable, meaning I will always have to be somewhat tied to a job to make ends meet, often a job that means I am sitting at a desk on a Sunday.
In the future, I am not looking for a gigantic payday, although that might be nice as well - but I do hope that there I will have built a significant income stream that allows me the flow of resources that provides the possibility to buy back time, rather than continually bleed it away to make ends meet on tasks I am less interested in than others. Even in attention, we are at a deficit - which is why so many people FOMO - because they are spilt in focus and know they can't have everything, so panic into a decision.
For now though - it is time to head home so I can give my daughter a kiss goodnight. That is always time well spent and the ROI is astronomical. I guess that makes it a family value and in that, I am very wealthy.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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Time poverty...what a great metaphor for nowadays and for what we would like to do with out time. I feel you on this and also with this pandemic my life habits have been changed. Between the time spend with the family and at work, I find some time to dedicate to the cryptocurrency world and to LEO Finance in special and my days are starting at 08:00 AM in the morning, they include a nap of 1-2 hours after work and end up at 03:00 AM. This allows me to do it all.
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I am glad I am not the only one that has had more work (less pay) this year :D I have worked from home for my own business for many years, but this is the first time everything is remote and it has meant that there is far more short notice bookings with less time to prep.
Hopefully things get better in 2021, but I have my doubts.
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"Time poor" is a real thing. Just as there are many types of abundance, there are also many types of poverty. We really want abundance, but not decadence, in all things: money, time, relationships, health, even wisdom.
I know you will get to a point where you have abundance in all these things. Enjoy the ride.
I think the ride is part of the fun - the rollercoaster journey of life. I think that overall, I am pretty lucky as while not consistently, I have periods of where things are okay. In this world, that might actually be more rare than not.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday.
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Living in time poverty is complicated, we all spend and many times waste what is worth much more than any amount of money such as time, so we must be selective in what we do
A clear example is losing an hour of life a day in traffic for getting up late, it is locuara better to wake up then go to work and sleep in the parking lot, you will be more productive and you will have infinite time to do other things as well.
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I live in a place where it isn't too much of an issue, but I agree. Getting out the door ten minutes earlier saves me about 5 minutes in commute. It doesn't sound like much, but it is 2 hours a month, 24 hours a year - 3 days of work.
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Time is our most valuable resource, sometimes it is difficult to learn how to manage it and how to take advantage of it, as you tell us.
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I find one of the biggest issues is working out what to leave off the list of things to do. What gets sacrificed.
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These days I read in a publication that someone said that he would like to be like you, @tarazkp, who "lives" from writing. At that moment I wanted to write to that person and tell them that you have a job and that you are far from living from your writing. And that to be like you, I would first have to invest not only the time you invest in writing but also the money you have invested in your work. For some people, you can have everything they aspire to. You can be, within the HIVE community, for example, one of the most "successful and recognized" people. But if you, perhaps, compare yourself to other people, you see that you still have many things to achieve success. What I have been clear about for some time is that as far as we have, we aspire to more. That final sentence is the most important and real one. Nice Sunday
Ha, I don't think anyone wants to be like me, they might want my stake though :) Living from writing would be nice - but I don't think it will be possible in this country for a long time.
There is a funny disconnect for Hive - where people think stake here means stake in the real world - I wish. The other thing that people often discount is the experience that it might take to get to this point. There is more to it than writing, there is all the background that has led to these words too. I think there is a reason that those with some experience tend to do okay here - while the inexperienced struggle.
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Yes man, time spent with smallsteps is a sure investment into the future.
I have now spent 20 years in the charity fields and sacrifice including compromise has become second nature.
Now consider this example; you buy a car, but it has no motor. So in the meantime you spend a lot of time working on the body and the contents of the car while waiting for a motor to appear on the market. At last the motor appears, but you have to wait 3 months for delivery.
Suddenly another motor comes on the market and this one you can get immediately for 10 times of the price than the motor that you have to wait for.
What would you do?
Well I have selected the compromise to wait for the coding courseware for the children.
We have spent many hours getting the goods together for the coding courses. New laptops, Windows 10 Pro and Office 365 plus licenses. We searched for months to find a suitable educational Non Profit that works with poor children and at last we found one to partner with.
So now it is time to get the motor, the actual certified courseware and we can get it at a huge discount, as we work with poor children. But we have to wait for about 3 months into the new year. It would cost us about R250 per student.
We want to run a pilot first with 16 learners, as I like to start small.
Another player appeared and offered us real top quality courses but at a starting price of R29000 per term for the 16 students. Their best price discounted.
Yes, we are ready and eager to start, but not that eager to be taking on something that we cannot afford.
So it's compromise at play as we wait for the new year. Time wasted?
Yes indeed, but there is a time and a place for everyting, even if we feel rushed all of the time.
What will happen, simply will happen!
I think it is for everyone - it is just that the "acceptance" part isn't - they feel the pain.
I am a cheap bastard ;D
In some ways it is time wasted, but I am guessing that in those three months, you aren't going to be sitting around idle, so perhaps there will be some additional value you will find along the way that you might have missed had the course started today. At least, there is the potential for it to happen now.
The "potential for" is why I have always taken the position that any job is better than no job.
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Same here about the cheapness factor and I think it stems from a battling childhood :)
In some ways it is time wasted, but I am guessing that in those three months, you aren't going to be sitting around idle,
That's why I sai that there is a time and a place for everything. It is obviously planned for me to discover other contributing factors during the waiting period. And you are right, in our work one is never idle :)
So true about the job, as no job cannot even be considered.
My concern is that we have only one income stream and I have to develop others.
well, i do consider my time here worthwhile. It might not be so significant in monetary terms, but have enough time to explore and learn new things. I feel in control of my life to a certain way. Unfortunately, the human soul insatiable. There are always new heights to reach.
time is constant but our lives are fleeting
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I think that the "new highs to reach" is a brilliant concept, but we squander it on useless activities. Just think how much money is spent for sports by the audience in this world - an activity that should be participated in as often as possible instead. We seem to continually "get more" to consume, without actually doing anything that means something.
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For now though - it is time to head home so I can give my daughter a kiss goodnight.
8 days a week.
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I think we always find the time do what's important to us, as this article is to you.
I hope you get more free time to do everything you want to do in the future.
I happen to be the opposite. I am technically below the poverty line by quite a bit, with a 2 person household on one income, but we live very well, traveling the world constantly, living in Airbnbs with few posessions, and I don't have to be anywhere for anything. I have bought one article of clothing in the past 18 months (not including glasses)
I'm very time rich, and have time to build things I want to, whether or not they end up making me money. I can write the papers I want, build what I want, write what I want.
I say this because I know you can do this too- if you are willing to be "poor" you can be rich in time. It's possible to live well frugally anywhere.
I am able to do this because I invested time making art and putting it on POD sites and creating courses, so it took a lot of time investment to become time rich, as expected, but I think it was worth it. I still work a lot, but I don't if I don't feel like it, I just almost always do feel like it!!
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
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STOPI feel like that time poverty thing is a ubiquitous issue that hits as soon as you leave whatever highest level of education you attain (assuming you're not working every second you're not studying, I had an awesome life during uni but it was pretty busy for a handful of my friends at the time).
So I'm going to do my usual and blame this work for a living delusion XD
Drat about everything having to be redone almost from scratch >_< was it alright in the end?
I haven't quit my
DayNight job yet.A very nice end to your Introspective.
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