The Value of Time

I had a long dicussion with my wife today centred around how we spend our time. Initially it was a discussion about whether or not we would accept an invitation to a party in Edmonton, where we would know very few of the people and have little time to spend with the hosts. In my mind, the point is to see our friends, as we only go to Edmonton six to eight times a year, so we try to make the most of each visit. The alternative option is to go up two weeks later and spend an evening with the people hosting the party.

Why this became an interesting conversation is becasue it uncovered that we place very different values on our time. Just like when we were in Australia everyone was talking about how precious fresh water as, just as we would talk about gold or a precious metal. But its scarcity in Australia makes it very valuable.

I place a very high value on my time. It's the only non-renewable resource. As a full-time employee I donate forty hours per week to my employer, a neccessity at the moment to pay our bills. The rest of my time I try to make the most of. I don't waste time with people who don't appreciate it, and I am continually trying to improve myself and my life with the discretionary time I have, and actively enjoy myself. Therefore I read, paint, exercise, socialize, write, mediatate, travel etc when I'm not parenting, cooking, eating, sleeping etc. We live in the inner city which keeps my commute under five minutes each way. I watch very little television (one or two hours a week) and I actively schedule my time to make the most of it.

As I re-read this I think it sounds anal, but how's this for perspective...

The average Canadian watches television for 21.4 hours per week (source Stats Canada) for... say seventy-five years, that's 9 years and 193 days wasted.

The average commute is in the ballpark of one hour in total (thirty minutes each way), five days a week for fifty weeks a year for forty years, that's 10,000 hours or 1 year and 51 days.

So, buy not watching television and living close to work, my effective life expectancy is almost eleven years longer than the average Canadian.

So, on average, buy how many years will smoking lower your life expectancy? A fifty-year study completed in 2004 by BUPA's Health Information Team in the U.K. stated that smoking cuts life expectancy by 10 years.

Can we therefore conclude that smoking is about as healthy as watching television? We should all pray for those who smoke and watch television, especially the ones who smoke while watching television!

There are many ways time can be spent... or wasted, depending on your perspective. But it's important to remember that once the time is spent it cannot be regained. Take the perspective of my grandfather, an old man dying of lung cancer. He only sees that there's isn't enough time to do everything he wants to. His only regret in life is that he smoked for thirty years, which has both made his life shorter, and the last five years more challenging to live, given his declining health.

It's important that we not only respect our own time, but even more importantly, the time of others. It is only by being active in the time we have that we can accomplish and grow.

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book" - Groucho Marx (1890-1977)