Recently I subscribed to blog updates of Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek. I haven't yet read the book, but I do own it. I just have to find 'time' to get to it. So far his blog has been great, mostly because he doesn't update every day so it doesn't get annoying in the inbox, and also because so far he's had mostly interesting things to say.
I've always been quite intrigued by the concept of time; such as time travel, time passing, awareness of time of day and so on. I HATE wasting time. As such, I can't sleep with a ticking clock in my room because the ticking simply reminds me that time is passing and I can't sleep. That's another story. Anyways, imagine my glee, especially with my current frame of mind (explained further down), when I came across today's entry. Also, some of you may remember that I was previously a stock broker, so I certainly could relate to the concept of comparing time with investments.
To make a long story short, Tim says he received the following email from a David Kutoff (CEO of MPC, and I have no idea who he is...lol), whom he met recently at a party. I thought it was really interesting, and wanted to share. It's a bit long, but worth it.
Bear with me, this is somewhat rough at the moment — my initial quandary was whether time, like currency, could be invested to produce a compounding effect. After a bit of thought, my conclusion is that the value of ones time could experience a significant gain, and perhaps a compounding effect over time, given an investment of [that present-state] time in knowledge, skill or other capacity, and a reinvestment of future gains (just like currency).
Money and currency — accumulated excess money — represent one part of your capacity to transact in the marketplace, and can be exchanged for help from others in the form of products or services, including “things” like consumables, depreciable and appreciable assets. Similarly every action you take, whether it be transaction-related or not, requires the expenditure of some amount of time, which is roughly fixed for all of us (say 10,000 working days between the ages of 22 and 62).
Much like currency can be exchanged for appreciable assets that can grow with a compounding effect over time if the gains are re-invested, my theory is that time can be thought about in a similar way, which may lead to more effective action.
To put this in terms of your thinking from your book, lets say you work 40 hours per week simply performing tasks requested by your employer, none of which produce any additional future potential for generating income for yourself.
This is the equivalent of spending your money on consumables or living expenses. It’s single use, and gives you no real future gain, aside from whatever currency you might earn in the moment. Now, you decide to outsource 50% of your tasks to India, producing the same outcomes with 50% of your time. You just doubled the value of your time compared to before (less the additional expense for the help). Now, with that free time, you get more rigorous about working out, studying, and building your networks. You increase your energy, skill, and capacity working with others and manage to produce yet the same results that were taking 50% of your time with only 30%. If you keep reinvesting some of your time in additional gains in your capacity to act, you can theoretically have a compounding effect with the value of your time (rather than time itself). Just like investing currency, the earlier you start this process, and continue to invest in your capacity, the more time your capacity has to compound, and the greater outcomes you can produce during your lifetime.
This seems extremely relevant to me now, especially since I have returned to school part time (night classes), and am eager to return to school next year for a full time program. Every day at my current job, and the jobs I've been working the past little while, I have felt like they are NOT producing "any additional future potential for generating income for" myself. Basically I'm going nowhere, and the jobs are not benefiting me in any way with increasing experience, skills, knowledge and so on. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, enough that I've been looking for another job (also because I'm barely able to pay the bills, and that kinda freaks me out). I have always thought that having a job to pay the bills is not enough. I want a job/career that is useful, interesting, and quite frankly, I want one that allows me to be independent, and do the things I want to do. Yes, I realize that's a lot to ask. And yes, I am a college graduate already, but it's obvious I am no longer working in a related field.
If I CAN go to school next year though, I will finally be investing in my future again, something that has been missing for a long time. If I "spend the time" to get further my education I'll be gaining skills and knowledge; I'll be increasing potential for future income and happiness (hopefully). The only problem is finding the money and income to get to school in the first place. Right now that is my only hurdle; and I hate it.
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“Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have - so spend it wisely”
~ Kay Lyons
So The B/F and I are quite excited for this summer's movie prospects. So far we've been disappointed in just one (Deception... blah), but tonight I was floored by how good Iron Man was. Yeah, that's right. Iron Man rocked. And you should see it. Even if you're sick of 'comic book super hero' movies, this one is still definitely worth the inflated price of movie tickets (actually, I got to see it for free but that's another story). I wasn't even looking forward to
It was nice to see Gweneth Paltrow in a movie that didn't suck though. And I'm sorry, but I gotta say, Robert Downey Jr. in this movie... kinda freaken hot actually (see evidence at right). Yeah... Didn't think I'd ever say that either, but it's true. Maybe that's why I am feeling 'squee'ish? "tee hee!"
So anyway, we kicked off 'summer blockbuster season' quite well I think. Tomorrow we shall continue in comic book fashion by attending 'Free Comic Book Day'. I doubt I'll be able to snag an Iron Man comic, just due to the timing of the movie and all (can't say it's worth waking up at 7am on a Saturday for, after seeing the late show, yes it really is 1:30am), but it should still be fun, and I'm surprisingly more excited about it than I thought I would be. Actually, I have a comic book T-shirt that I may have to dig out of the dresser and wear. Yeah, I'm a geek. If anyone has any good comics to recommend, do let me know! :)
Here are the rest of the movies on our 'to do' list this summer (in order of release date):
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Kung Fu Panda
WALL•E
The Dark Knight
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Tropic Thunder
Those are ones we will definitely be seeing in theatre.
The rest of these are just maybe's, and ones that we'd likely see at the 'cheap' theatre:
You Don't Mess With the Zohan
The Happening
Get Smart
The Love Guru
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (I'm hoping the b/f sees this with his brother, so I'm not dragged into it)
The Incredible Hulk (reluctantly adding this to the list after seeing a decent preview prior to Iron Man, and discovering that Tony Stark makes a cameo)
Considering we don't go on vacations very often, due to various circumstances, it's nice to know we'll have something to do this summer to keep busy. Oh, and I'm sure we'll fit in other 'summery' activities like bike riding and such, and the three night class I'm taking this summer.. ugh.
Sigh... I love seeing good movies though. They make me happy. Yet sad, because I don't work in the industry. But happy!.... and sad... We laughed, we cried... we stayed til the end of the credits.
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Let's be honest, this isn't the worst thing you've caught me doing.
Tony Stark / Iron Man
I should be writing these down as I see them, rather than waiting and trying to remember. We watched a lot of movies lately it seems, though I guess I haven't updated about the movies in a month. This brings my total to 17 movies that I've watched, that I had not seen previously (with a goal of 101).
My Neighbour Totoro (cute one by Hayao Miyazaki, kind of felt like it had no plot but it was still really cute)
The Forbidden Kingdom (too much like Karate Kid for me, with the cheesy 'train useless boy to be fighter' theme... the main character kind of annoyed me, but the action scenes were up to expectations... as in.. awesome, because it was Jet Li and Jackie Chan! HELLO)
Hollywoodland (more boring than I'd hoped. I still liked my Adrien Brody, but the movie... 'meh' I think...)
American Gangster (honestly, I really liked this one. I like mob/cop/gangster movies anyways, but still this one was pretty good. We watched the extended version even, and it didn't drag, so that's a plus)
Bee Movie (cute... not spectacular cute, but still somewhat amusing.. we rented it, I probably won't bother buying it.. other than the Shrek movies, the Dreamworks animations always leave a little something missing for me... I'm hoping Kung Fu Panda is awesome at least)
Enchanted (freaken CUTE AS HELL. This movie was awesome. We rented, and I want to buy it.. there in lies the difference between this and Bee Movie in my opinion)
I think that's it. Chris helped me remember which ones we saw.. lol So I've updated the 101 in 1001 list. I haven't accomplished as much as I'd like, but I've also done things I hadn't expected. Like try a new recipe. I've been meaning to post the one we made (with pictures), but I keep forgetting. It was soooo awesome though. Anyways, my counter tells me I have 909 days left. Better get cracking.
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“Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music”
~ Frank Capra
Sigh... So in case no one had noticed, I don't usually know what day it is. Despite the fact that I'm usually very aware of the time, and deadlines, and so forth, unless something important is going on, I usually don't remember the date anymore. So I'm going to toss in the last 3 songs of the soundtrack CD here because I keep forgetting when it's the 11th, or 1st, or 21st, or 31st. The rest, I'll admit, aren't that good anyways (by comparison at least). All in all, I hope you enjoyed the CD. Some gems on there for sure. lol
"The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire." -- Pamela Hansford Johnson
Show us a self-taken picture of the sunset.
Submitted by Connie.
I'll show you a self-taken picture of myself and the sunset. So there.
When I first started 'taking pictures' I still lived out in the country at my parents house. It had wonderful views of sunsets, so they were very photogenic and good 'learning' experiences. However, I won't post any of those ones.
Instead, this one too the left I took last year. It probably isn't quite the 'sunset' they meant, but I still like it.
And the one to the right is one from my winter trip a couple years ago, where 90% of the photos I took were taken while I was driving (including this one).
I honestly had no idea this was the sun, until I'd passed over a hill. I thought it was just some random red light in someone's yard.. heh
Anyway I figured I'd post some 'unconventional' sunset photos, to mix it up a bit.
Sheesh, the last two days kinda snuck up on me, smacked me upside the head, and took off before I had a chance to turn around and look at them.
On that note, I now have two more soundtrack songs for you all. Two of the 'best' from the CD, dare I say.
First up.... probably one of the top ten wedding songs of the 80s. lol
And next, one of the top ten wedding songs of the 80s.... jk.. but probably the one that brought the launch of leg warmers as something 'cool'. I'm kinda glad I was too young in the 80s to know any better, and can blame my mother for an fashion mishaps (or poofy hair mishaps).
And I gotta say, what is UP with all these old trends coming back. I mean, I've seen people wearing leg warmers again, not to mention all the childhood toys on the rebound. I swear, this decade will go down as one of the most unoriginal in modern history.
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SIKE!
So here are the answers to yesterday's pop quiz. Thanks and congratulations to those few who guessed. And shame on those who just waited for the answers :P lol
Note: I have not verified these answers. They just came from an email forwarded to me.
1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends... Boxing
2. North American landmark constantly moving backward... Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)
3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons... Asparagus and rhubarb.
4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside... Strawberry.
5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)
6. Three English words beginning with dw... Dwarf, dwell and dwindle.
7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar... Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.
8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh... Lettuce.
9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with 'S'... Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.
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“If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?”
~ Scott Adams
Got this email from my mom this morning. Had some interesting facts, so I thought I'd post it here in case you guys feel like guessing (no googling answers!). People always like to feel smart, and learn things... in theory.
I will post the real answers tomorrow. Or tonight, if you're lucky.
1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.
2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?
3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?
6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.
7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?
8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.
9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'
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“You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.”
~ Erica Jong
The holiday weekend messed w/ my schedule and I didn't get a chance to post this before I left for the weekend. My bad.
Bringing us back to Friday (the 21st), I give you something else that will certainly bring you back. And something that will certainly be stuck in your head the rest of the day/evening/night. You're welcome. :P
