To us humans, life does not come equally. Some are born rich, some are born poor. While some have great families and wonderful childhoods, for others it is not so. Even if we were born in the same family, but in a different country or in a different culture, we wouldn’t be the same person. These are the facts that we cannot change most of the time.
I think the only thing that treats people equally is time. Leaving the relativity theorem aside, time passes at the same speed for all of us. That is, a unit of time has the same value for everyone. What we do in this unit of time is also largely up to us. And I believe, how we use time determines the biggest difference between us.
How do we spend our time
Imagine that time is the money of our life. How would you like to spend it?
Before answering that question, let’s think about how real money is spent. You usually spend the money in your wallet on essential expenses(rents, payments, etc) or things you enjoy(vacation, hobbies, etc). Of course, you prefer to spend money on the things you love. However, for this, there should be money left over from the necessary expenses. Sometimes remaining money may not be enough and people start looking for ways to make more money. Those who do this best are usually those who turn their savings into an investment that will make more money. They somehow manage to make money from the money they earn. From one point of view, someone who earns the same money as you can have more money than you in the medium term with the right investments. In this way, they can spend more money on the things they love, and that makes a difference in the long run.
Returning to our original question, our desire to spend our time is similar to that of money. We spend most of our time on things we have to do or love. Once again, we prefer to spend time on the things we enjoy. And again, there must be time left over from the things we do out of necessity so that we can make time for the things we enjoy. So what can we do if it doesn’t, or it isn’t enough? Unfortunately, time is not something we can store in a box and use later. We can’t save it like money. It is continuously flowing. This makes time even more precious because the time we have is constantly decreasing.
Invest in time
If our goal is a life where we spend more time on the things we love, but we can’t find time for it, we must somehow find a way to make better use of the time we already have. The first step would be to think about our daily life, eliminate the time we waste, and spend that time on ourselves. For example, if we can find a way to shorten the time we spend commuting, we can use the time we regain for ourselves. The second step is to use this time in a way that will save us more time in the future. For example, if we spend this time learning a new skill, we increase our chances of finding another job with a better work-life balance. Or, if we increase our financial knowledge, we can better use our savings and create resources to devote more time to ourselves in the future.
We may think that we are behind in life compared to others. However, we must not forget that time flows in the same way for all of us. It’s actually up to us to make the best use of it. First, we must take time for ourselves. Then we should use that time in a way that allows us to devote more time to the things we love in the future. Of course, we cannot evaluate every moment in this way. But if we try our best, I think we will be able to notice improvements between ourselves and our past selves. Although it may seem like a small change at first, I believe it will make a difference over time.