How do you value time versus money?
Let’s first understand a crucial difference between them: As a personal commodity, money is extremely elastic, in that you can theoretically accumulate an infinite amount of it.
Time, by contrast, is intrinsically inelastic: You cannot accumulate more of it and you’ve never had any less of it. You and I, we get the same amount of minutes & hours in every day of our life.
So, shouldn’t an hour be much more valuable than a dollar ?
Yet we consistently behave as if the opposite were true.
For example: Would you accept a new job with a 20 percent higher salary if it meant a 25 percent longer workweek or a 50 percent longer commute? If so, you are valuing your monetary affluence over your time affluence.
Another illogical way in which we value these two commodities: An abundance of money is considered a status symbol, while an abundance of time is considered shameful.
I observe here in Singapore there’s a premium on busyness — on having a deficit of time.
Why are we so willing to trade in our time for money when time is limited but money is not?
Thoughts?
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