The Most Valuable Asset I Own Is the One I Cannot Save
There is a peculiar irony in the way one lives.
Recently, I saw the below video
https://youtu.be/3SBf7hD0sEw?si=eKDnyAe6Uahl9eKw
And the thoughts started pouring...
Hence, as always, I thought of penning those down..
Here we go...!!!
I have spent a significant part of my life trying to accumulate things that I believed would eventually give me freedom. Yet, as I look at life more closely, I realise that there is a danger in spending too much of the present preparing for a future in which I may finally have the freedom to use what I accumulated.
Money can be earned again. Wealth can be rebuilt. Investments can recover. Possessions can be replaced.
Time cannot.
That, perhaps, is the most important financial lesson of my life, although it has very little to do with money.
I recently came across an interesting thought experiment involving a lottery. If I were offered a certain amount of money with absolute certainty, or a much larger amount with only a 25 percent probability of receiving it, my decision would depend greatly on where I stood in life. What may feel like an attractive risk when my basic needs are already secure may feel completely irrational when those basic needs are not.
And that is where the idea becomes much larger than a lottery.
My priorities have changed as I have moved through life.
At one stage, survival matters. Then security. Then comfort. Then experiences, relationships, freedom, meaning and, perhaps eventually, self-actualisation.
The mistake would be to keep playing the same game even after I have reached a different stage of the game.
At some point, the question should stop being:
“How much more can I earn?”
and become:
“What am I earning this additional money for?”
That question has been occupying my mind for some time.
Looking back at my own life
When I look at my twenties, I realise that I was playing a very different game.
I wanted to experience life.
I worked, I saved and I was reasonably responsible with money, but saving was not the central objective of my existence. I had energy, curiosity and a strong desire to consume life in its many forms.
I travelled.
I ate well.
I explored.
I learnt.
I questioned.
I experimented.
I tried to understand life, spirituality, existence, the afterlife and the fundamental principles behind things that interested me.
I was never interested in alcohol or drugs, not because I was making some grand financial calculation, but simply because they were never my choices. Similarly, whatever food restrictions I had were also choices, while I still enjoyed rich and good food.
My twenties and early thirties were largely about experiencing life while I had the energy to experience it.
I had also dreamt about self-employment. But somewhere within me there was a sense that I did not necessarily have to rush into it. I wanted to experience the transition between one phase of life and another consciously.
So, at 33, I took a sabbatical.
I experimented.
I tried to understand what it meant to earn differently, live differently and perhaps eventually work differently.
It gave me experience, but it also gave me something more valuable: perspective.
I eventually returned to salaried employment.
But I did not return to exactly the same mindset.
Over the years that followed, I began finding my own balance between money, entertainment, fitness, experiences, learning and freedom.
And perhaps that balance has been one of the most important outcomes of my life.
Money matters. But money is not the destination.
I do not believe in romanticising financial irresponsibility.
Money matters.
Savings matter.
Inflation matters.
Investments matter.
Financial security matters.
Health security matters.
Planning for the future matters.
There is nothing spiritual about being financially careless and then expecting life to somehow take care of the consequences.
But there is another equally dangerous mistake.
To continue accumulating simply because accumulation has become the habit.
At some point, I need to sit down and ask myself a brutally honest question:
Am I still earning because I genuinely need to build more security and freedom, or am I earning because I need to prove something to myself, to my family, to society or to an imaginary scoreboard?
The answer matters enormously.
Because there is a difference between working for freedom and becoming a prisoner of the work that was supposed to create freedom.
The objective of financial planning, at least for me, is not to become infinitely wealthy.
It is to reach a point where my money and investments can provide sufficient financial security while allowing me to make choices about how I spend the most valuable resource I possess.
Time.
The race against time
Time is perhaps the strangest asset of all.
I know exactly what it is doing, yet I can still behave as though I have plenty of it.
Every day, the balance falls.
And there is no top-up.
No refinancing.
No recovery.
No inheritance of someone else's unused time.
No investment that compounds yesterday.
Money can buy convenience.
Money can buy healthcare.
Money can buy experiences.
Money can buy comfort.
Money can even buy someone else's time and therefore give me more usable time.
But money cannot buy back a Tuesday that has already disappeared.
This is why the Warren Buffett example is so powerful to me.
The idea is not really about whether someone is worth millions or billions. It is about recognising that even the wealthiest person on earth has exactly the same fundamental constraint as everyone else.
There are only so many mornings left.
And the older I become, the more precious each remaining morning becomes.
When I am twenty-five, losing an afternoon feels almost irrelevant because there appear to be thousands more ahead.
At fifty, sixty or seventy, the arithmetic is different.
The remaining years may still be many, but the years of physical energy, health, curiosity and freedom are not infinite.
That distinction is crucial.
It is not enough for me to ask:
“How long might I live?”
I also need to ask:
“How many years will I have the physical and mental capacity to actually consume the things I spent my life earning?”
Because there is a peculiar tragedy in accumulating resources for a future version of myself who may no longer have the energy, health or inclination to use them.
The calculation I want to keep making
This is where financial planning needs to become life planning.
I want to periodically ask myself:
Have I saved enough?
Have I invested enough?
Have I accounted for inflation?
Have I protected myself against foreseeable financial risks?
Have I taken adequate care of my health?
Have I created enough financial independence to make choices rather than merely accept circumstances?
And then comes the more uncomfortable question:
If the answer to all of these is reasonably satisfactory, why am I still running at the same speed?
Perhaps I can continue working.
Perhaps I genuinely enjoy my work.
Perhaps I can continue earning and investing.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But there should be a fundamental difference between choosing to work and having no choice but to work.
If I can work for a few hours because I enjoy the intellectual stimulation, relationships, purpose or sheer pleasure of doing something meaningful, that is one thing.
If I work because stopping would collapse the entire structure of my life, that is something else.
The external activity may look identical.
The internal experience is completely different.
One is choice.
The other is burden.
And burden and freedom are deeply personal definitions.
Nobody else can calculate them for me.
Society can tell me what success looks like.
People can tell me when I should retire.
Financial influencers can tell me how much I should have.
Friends can tell me what I should aspire to.
But only I can honestly answer whether I have enough.
And being dishonest with myself on that question does not punish anyone else.
It punishes me.
Perhaps 45 to 65 deserves a different strategy
I have often thought about the period between roughly 45 and 65 as a particularly important window.
Not because life ends at 65. It obviously does not.
But because for many people, this may be the period when financial resources are relatively strong while physical and mental energy are still reasonably available.
It is therefore worth asking whether this is the period when I should begin slowing down the things that feel like burden and accelerating the things that feel like life.
Not recklessly.
Not impulsively.
Not by abandoning responsibility.
But consciously.
Perhaps fewer unnecessary possessions.
Less comparison.
Less proving.
Less compulsive accumulation.
Less running merely because everyone else is running.
And perhaps more travel.
More conversations.
More learning.
More fitness.
More food enjoyed without guilt.
More time with people I love.
More curiosity.
More silence.
More exploration.
More sitting somewhere beautiful without checking the clock.
More time doing things that have no economic value but enormous human value.
Because eventually, the question may not be:
“How much did I earn?”
It may be:
“Did I actually experience the life that my earnings were supposed to make possible?”
There is another journey I am preparing for
There is also a deeper dimension to how I look at all this.
I think of this life as having two layers.
The first is temporary.
This body is a vehicle.
This mind is also a vehicle.
It needs to be maintained.
It might need good food, movement, rest, discipline, stimulation and care.
If I want to travel through this life well, I cannot completely neglect the vehicle carrying me through it.
So fitness, health, food, sleep and mental well-being are not separate from spirituality or financial planning.
They are part of the same responsibility.
But I also believe there is another journey beneath the visible one.
Perhaps what I call myself is not limited to this body and this mind.
Perhaps consciousness, energy or what I call the soul has a journey that extends beyond this temporary existence.
I cannot claim to know the ultimate truth of that journey.
But I can choose to prepare for it.
And that preparation, for me, is not about escaping this life.
It is about experiencing it more consciously.
If the body is temporary and the journey is permanent, then this life becomes an opportunity to understand the traveller rather than merely decorate the vehicle.
Perhaps the purpose is not only to accumulate things for the vehicle.
Perhaps it is also to understand what is travelling in it.
To observe.
To learn.
To become less attached.
To understand myself.
To explore consciousness.
To reduce unnecessary desires.
To experience life fully without becoming completely entangled in it.
And perhaps, when this vehicle eventually completes its journey, whatever comes next will not feel entirely unfamiliar.
I feel I have, by and large, already been living this way; and for my benefit. It might sound like a brag but so be it. I respect that perspective also, if anyone offers.
Anyway, when I look back, I realise that none of this happened overnight.
The person I am today did not suddenly appear at forty.
It began somewhere around thirty-six.
The twenties taught me how to experience.
The early thirties taught me how to experiment.
The years that followed taught me how to balance.
And somewhere along the way, money stopped being merely something to accumulate and started becoming something to use intelligently in the service of life.
I do not think I have designed everything perfectly.
Life has obviously played its own role.
Circumstances, people, opportunities, limitations, coincidences and overall, what I personally understand as karmic arrangements have all contributed to where I am today.
But I also recognise that many of my choices have consciously moved me towards a life that feels increasingly aligned with what I value.
And today, if I have to describe my life honestly, I would say this:
I feel satisfied.
Not because I have everything.
Not because I know what tomorrow holds.
I don't.
I do not even know what the next moment holds.
And perhaps that is precisely why I want to remain available to it.
The reminder I want to carry forward
I do not want to turn this philosophy into another achievement.
That would be wonderfully ironic.
I do not want to create a new target called "freedom" and then spend ten years anxiously trying to achieve it.
I want to continue flowing with life.
To earn when earning makes sense.
To save when saving makes sense.
To invest when investing makes sense.
To work when work gives me meaning or value.
To stop when continuing has become unnecessary burden.
To travel when I can.
To learn when curiosity arises.
To take care of this body because it is the vehicle through which I experience this existence.
To explore the mind because it is the instrument through which I interpret it.
And to explore the possibility of something beyond both because that question has always fascinated me.
Most importantly, I want to remember that the purpose of accumulating resources is not to accumulate resources.
The purpose is to create the freedom to experience, understand, love, explore and live.
There will always be another financial target.
Another investment.
Another upgrade.
Another opportunity.
Another milestone.
Another number.
But there will never be another TODAY, another NOW.
Time is the only asset whose balance decreases simply because I am alive.
It depreciates every second.
It cannot be insured.
It cannot be borrowed.
It cannot be bought back.
And unlike money, its scarcity does not become apparent only when the balance is low.
The balance is falling right now.
So perhaps the real question I need to keep asking myself is not:
“How much more can I accumulate?”
It is:
“Am I using what I have accumulated to live the life for which I accumulated it?”
And perhaps an even deeper question:
“Do I realise that eventually this vehicle will change, but the journey will continue? And while I put the current vehicle to the best possible use, am I also preparing for the vehicle I may receive on my onward journey, so that it helps me move closer towards the final destination on the path to Liberation?”
For me, Liberation represents a state beyond the need for a vehicle altogether, a vehicle-less state extending into infinity.
Perhaps that is the deeper purpose of this journey.
To take care of the vehicle.
To use it fully.
To experience what it allows me to experience.
To learn through it.
To understand the traveller within it.
And, at the same time, to prepare the traveller for the journey beyond the current LIFE.
:-)
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