Take back control of your time

Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays. This blog focuses on understanding the fundamentals of freedom of time and why it is important.

“The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays."

The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.” People want to become wealthier to make them happier. Happiness is a complicated subject because everyone’s different. But if there’s a common denominator in happiness —a universal fuel of joy—it’s that people want to control their lives. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.

More than your income. More than the size of your house. More than the prestige of your work. Control over doing what you want, when you want to, with the people you want to, is the broadest lifestyle variable that makes people happy.

Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time. To obtain, bit by bit, a level of independence and autonomy that comes from unspent assets that give you greater control over what you can do and when you can do it.

A small amount of wealth means the ability to take a few days off work without breaking the bank. Gaining that ability is huge if you don’t have it.

Using your money to buy time and options has a lifestyle benefit few luxury goods can compete with.

Throughout college, I wanted to be a Software Solutions Architect. There was only one reason why: they made a lot of money. That was the only drive, and one I was 100% positive would make me happier once I got it. I scored a summer internship at TCS in Hyderabad in my junior year and thought I won the career lottery. This is all I ever wanted.

On my first day, I realized why Software Solutions Architects make a lot of money: They work longer and more controlled hours than I knew humans could handle. Actually, most can’t handle it. Going home before midnight was considered a luxury. The job was intellectually stimulating, paid well, and made me feel important. But every waking second of my time became a slave to their demands, which was enough to turn it into one of the most miserable experiences of my life.

The hardest thing about this was that I loved the work. And I wanted to work hard. But doing something you love on a schedule you can’t control can feel the same as doing something you hate.

People like to feel like they’re in control—in the driver’s seat. When we try to get them to do something, they feel disempowered. Rather than feeling like they made the choice, they feel like we made it for them. So they say no or do something else, even when they might have originally been happy to go along.

When you accept how true that statement is, you realize that aligning money towards a life that lets you do what you want, when you want, with who you want, where you want, for as long as you want, has incredible returns.

Part of what’s happened here is that we’ve used our greater wealth to buy bigger and better stuff. But we’ve simultaneously given up more control over our time. At best, those things cancel each other out.

What do we do about that?

It’s not an easy problem to solve, because everyone’s different. The first step is merely acknowledging what does, and does not, make almost everyone happy.

The most important lessons which I learned over the years of life

experience is to be happy and content with what you have and don't try to do something just to make money to buy the things you want but don't need because that will never buy you happiness. Secondly, it’s not always important to be as wealthy as the people around you, because that's not always the correct measurement for real success and sometimes it takes an entire lifetime to accept the reality; it's not so easy. Lastly, never choose your work based on your desired future earning power because we humans always tend to chase money and you will definitely regret it at some point of time in your life.

Much love and God bless! 😇