Let’s say that you’re paid $10 per hour, just so we have a round number.  This means that your time is worth $240 per day, $1680 per week, $87,600 per year.  Using this method, when you choose to sleep 8 hours a day rather than 6, you’re wasting $7300 over the course of a year.

This is bogus.

Yes, in a sense, time is an interchangeable commodity.  If I work 40 hours a week in my job, it doesn’t so much matter which 40 hours that is.

But perhaps that’s not true.  If I work during the time that I might have attended my kid’s game or concert, I’ve lost something immeasurable.  How could I possibly value time with my kids at $10 an hour – or at any monetary value?  It’s on a different dimension.

If I decide not to take a break around Christmas, there’s tradeoffs happening which are far more important than money changing hands: with my family, with my spirituality, with my own mental health.

It’s absolutely true that you can’t take it with you.  And the experiences you leave with your family and friends when you die are on a different dimension than any money you might leave them.

I don’t mean for this to sound morbid, speaking of death and all that.  This really is about how you choose to spend your life.  Associating work with the money you make is reasonable, but don’t try to measure other parts of your life in terms of money.

You’ll end up making bad decisions if you do.  LIVE your life.

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