Money, Time, and Tradeoffs

                Every dollar we earn supplies us with an increasing number of options and opportunities.  This is because money can be exchanged for almost anything material or physical.  In essence, an increase in money equals an expansion of freedom and time (all else being equal).  For example, a millionaire can always choose to live like a hobo, while a hobo cannot choose to live like a millionaire. 

                Problematically, earning money almost always involves a massive limitation on our time and freedom.  For most people, a large percentage of their waking life is spent doing a job they don’t enjoy because they need money for a variety of reasons. 

                We want money to maximize our free-time, but we sacrifice our free-time to earn money.

                The real question is: where is the equilibrium point between having enough money to have a multitude of options (by sacrificing your freedom to earn money) and having plenty of time to enjoy life but limited options (because you haven’t earned enough money through work). 

                Many people have not found a logical balance.  They have so blindly pursued money that they have sacrificed nearly all their time (and freedom) in the process.  What is the point of earning money if you don’t have the free-time to properly enjoy the options it supplies? 

                To achieve an optimum balance, one should begin by determining how much money they need to live a basic, modern lifestyle (rent, food, gas, etc.).  After that point, every extra hour of work should be analyzed in terms of whether the money earned is worth the sacrifice of freedom.  While this may seem obvious on a conceptual level, it appears very few apply this logic to their own lives.

                Granted, most jobs do not allow one to determine how many hours they will work – it’s either a large amount of hours or none at all.  But life is always a series of tradeoffs, and massive changes may be needed to put our lives in order.  I think most of us would be happier working less and earning less, but this sort of decision requires us to accept that many people around us will have more “things.”  We will not be able to keep with the Jones’s anymore.  Although this may be terrifying for many of us, ultimately it will be more freeing.  We expect to own all these possessions because we see them all around us, not because we actually need them.  Once we independently determine what we actually need, we will no longer be endlessly working to fulfill a never-ending void.