“I’m running out of time.” That thought crosses my mind almost every day. It’s more of a feeling, really, in my gut, that there isn’t enough time in the day to do all the things I want and hope to do. Or, worse, the feeling that I’ve wasted a day that I’ll never get back.
Maybe this is a good thing, this feeling of urgency. It teaches you to “treasure the present moment,” as the gurus might say. But the angst that comes with it is that I might not be spending my time on the right things. That what I’m doing now, right now, might not be worth it. That makes sense when you think of the time you “have left” on a demand curve. Since you aren’t guaranteed any more time, this moment is the last unit of supply you know you’ve got. If there’s one unit of supply, and the demand is infinite (infinite because after this moment you want and expect another and another and another…) then the value of this one moment must approach infinity. What could you possibly do that would be a fair exchange for infinite value? Is it possible to find a hedge against what amounts to infinite loss?
The trick in the trap is that is that if you don’t spend this infinitely valuable moment on something, it will be gone anyway. You’re in a flea market with a $100 bill in your hand that will vanish in one minute whether you buy something or not. There are plenty of ways to solve this dilemma. Buy an ice cream cone, buy a new shirt, buy something pretty to hang on your wall. A thousand forms of instant- or self-gratification are on offer every moment, until you’re out of moments.
And there’s the rub. No matter what you spend your time on, no matter how many golden tickets you get before the last one pops up, when you’re out of time all that infinite value instantly zeroes out. You might as well have done nothing.
But is that true? It is, if what you value is self, specifically your self. The hedge against infinite loss, it turns out, is to give away what you have to others. Diversify your portfolio. This may be your last day on earth, but if you use it — or even some of it — to add value to someone else, that value doesn’t vanish when you’re gone. And the more baskets you put those eggs in, the better chance that they’ll last another day, and another, and another.
How do you add value that matters? That’s up to you. Be generous with your time. Write a letter. Shovel your neighbor’s driveway. Teach someone how to do something. Make some good memories with your kids. Buy donuts for the office (once people are back in offices again). Start a blog and share something human with other humans. Do it once. Then do it again.