Rule # 43: Time is relative
My son Stephen is finishing up his degrees in math and physics and is preparing to apply to doctorate programs in mathematical physics to focus on special and general relativity. Although he denies it I’m pretty sure he intends to build a time machine and become the universe’s overlord. I’m fine with that as long as can afford his own apartment and gets good healthcare.
In discussing this potential path with Stephen I started thinking about time and space, and if time is really constant. I started thinking that the constants of the universe like time may actually be warped.
Anyone that has ever sat through oral surgery can tell you that the 20 minutes in the chair can feel like 6 hours.. each second becoming slower and slower as the sound of the drill whizzes in you head.
When you are spending romantic time with the one you love those same seconds tick by at lightening speed and disappear in a single breath. When you are with the person your heart belongs to time seems to race by.
I believe that not all time is equal…some minutes are hours and some hours are minutes.
So as a rule it is important that you understand that time is relative to what you are doing and who you are doing it with, and understanding this realivity will give you great power. Maybe even more power than Stephen the universe’s future overlord.
Being a capitalist at heart I’ve always looked at a relationship between time and money, and this has helped me understand the value of different moments of time. Let’s say that your time on earth is valued at $3 a minute- wait I’m a capitalist let’s make it $2.99 a minute. So that each moment in time that we use is an actual investment, something we want to get value from in life.
In the moments that drag by like that long algebra class or that really bad relationship each minute feels like its an hour so we are actually only getting the returns of $2.99 an hour.. and who wants to work for 2.99 hr?
But experiences like a great dinner with friends can make an hour feel like a minute and we are getting $180 of enjoyment for each minute we invest. Its the same $2.99 minute but investing it the right people in the right way gets us so much more value in our lives.
Time like money is limited. We can live healthy long lives, but in the end we all die. Having a finite amount of time money to spend makes really need to reflect on how we spend our next $2.99 minute. How we spend this money really define how we will experience the moments of our life.
Always ask yourself, “am I investing my time in positive things that bring myself and the world positive returns?”,” when I am doing something ( investing your time) how much value am I getting?”.
The things that make time go fast, the things that make life pass in an instant are the things you should be investing yourself in more. Find the things that really speed time, and focus all your energy on them.
Keep that $2.99 a minute in your mind and always ask yourself is what I am doing the best way to invest this money.
And Stephen when you do finally conquer this time-space continuum stuff make sure that Dad gets a chance to invest in Microsoft in 1984.