May
28

Time Is Not Money – Time Is Money Debunked

I have been getting really tired of hearing people say the phrase “Time is Money” to me recently. Though I can understand the merit of the phrase when spoken during business hours, since rent, hourly wages, and other time based payments are factored in, each time I hear it outside of work, I just want to shout to the speaker at the top of my lungs “No it’s not, stop spreading stupidity!”

When I was a toddler, I used to play with a very simple puzzle, the goal of the puzzle was to fit various shapes into similar shaped holes, the triangular shape into the triangular shaped hole, the pentagon into the pentagon hole, square into the square hole, however the circular piece on my version of this puzzle, was a little bit special, since all the pieces were designed with the exact same width, the circular piece would not only fit into the circular shaped hole, but also into the square shaped hole. However even in my toddler years I was already smart enough to realize that this did not make a circle equal to a square, because the square would not fit through the circular hole. The phrase “circle is square” makes about as much sense to me as “time is money”.

Shape Puzzle

Although money is something you can rent people’s time with, and with more money you can indeed rent more people’s time, one thing that you can never do with money, is buy more time for yourself, and neither can anyone else. Time is limited, and the only real thing that any of us have here on earth, it is the most valuable thing we ever possess, and most everyone would give up any amount of money to have more. Although you’re always free to sell your own time as much as you wish, you can never buy it back.

In a social situation, two people are sharing their time with each other, nobody is paying one another, and therefore the value of both people’s time is completely equal, in fact you could use the phrase “time is time” or “time = time” and nobody could ever bring a valid argument against it.

Sometimes I feel that a good part of society has things a little bit mixed up about money and time, that some of the rich people, and also some of the poor, feel that the value of a wealthy people’s time is greater,  but again, in a social situation, where money is not involved, time has no monetary value, and we all make the same wage of absolutely nothing.

Obviously time is not money.

Apr
04

The Need To Lead

A few years ago now on a summer weekend afternoon, I had a conversation with my girlfriend at the time, Charlene, that has stuck in my head quite a bit over recent years. We had made plans to spend the day together, and she had just arrived outside my condo for the two of us to go off on our adventure.

She asked me “So, where do you want to go ?”

Having only lived in my current city for about a year I replied “I don’t know this area very well, why don’t you take me somewhere ?”

She was stunned a bit for a second then said “You know, I don’t think I have ever been asked that before, everyone always takes me everywhere.”

Batman Must Always Lead

After a bit of thinking, Charlene took me on an amazing tour of the area, including two wonderful lakes, one of which had a huge sand building competition on it that day, which Charlene had already been aware of, and the other had a great cliff side view of the surrounding forest and lake which we first ate lunch at, and then hiked down for a private swim. After we hiked back up to the car she then took me to a great restaurant for dinner where we stayed for several hours afterwords to drink beer and listen to the live blues band.

I found it quite amazing that no one had ever asked Charlene in all her thirty years of living in the same area, where she wanted to go. This though of course was of great benefit to me, because by her sitting in the passenger seat all these years, she had collected a huge knowledge of good things to do, and the best of it all this knowledge had been delivered to me on this day. Needless to say I wanted to see more the next time she came over, and she had more than a few days of things for us to do that were of great interest, all of which I added to my own list of things to do in the area when people visited me from out of town.

I wondered a bit more to myself why no one had ever asked her before what she wanted to do, she was often quiet, but quite obviously bright. I am guessing it was mostly because in groups there is usually that one person that really feels the need to lead everyone all the time, and that was just not the way she was. Usually those that force themselves on us as the leader are a type “A” personality, and Charlene was defiantly not one of these.

Funny Leadership

Now don’t get me wrong, leadership is a wonderful thing, and necessary if you want to get things done efficiently, you need a leader. I lead my household around most of the time, but not always, and I also lead my employees, but feeling the need to be leading everyone around all of the time, is a massive weakness of personality in my books.

In my opinion, constant leaders usually have the least knowledge of anyone in the group, as all of their less than vast knowledge is quickly shared to the masses who usually, due to their ability to sometimes follow, both individually and collectively know more. So if you yourself feel the need to lead constantly, you might want to consider taking a back seat sometimes to let a more knowledgeable person show you around, that way when you do take control, people won’t always be quietly wishing they were somewhere else.

Apr
02

Please Keep Your Freedumb Away From My Freedom

I am just days away from a two week holiday to my hometown of Vancouver Canada, it is always nice to see the west coast of Canada in the spring, often during this time of year the trees will blossom, adding some incredible colors to the already beautiful scenery, and a sweet scent to the cool fresh air. I am also of course very much looking forward to seeing my family and friends, who are the reason for the trip.

After making some plans to visit friends, a discussion about me started amongst my various acquaintances back home, and eventually, some of this discussion came back to me though hearsay. Apparently not all of my friends think I am doing very well in life, and by their measurement, which is salary, I guess I am not, but I do not measure my life in salary, if I did I would have kept some of the high paying jobs I had in the past, or taken some that were offered to me along the way, but I did not, because instead of salary, I measure my life in how much free time I get to experience, free time I often spend with my son, or traveling, reading, and writing.

Consumer PrisionerInevitably during my trip back to Canada as I visit with the few friends that can find enough time off work to see me, they may give me advice, as they often have before, about how I should change my life to be more like theirs, forgetting that I had lived that way for too many years already, with the waking up to an alarm, rushing to work, wearing a shirt, tie and black socks, eating when I’m told to, and then rushing back home at the end of the day. Many just can’t seem to understand that even though I hardly make any money at all by writing, programming, and selling shirts on the internet for a living, it is exactly the type of life I hope to live forever. To me what I have is something closer to true freedom, than the common illusion of it, which is humorously defined on the web today as freedumb.

As they suggest I dust off my work clothing, which I assume still exists somewhere in my closet, to get a “real job”, and make some real money, I will likely just nod politely, and think to myself, “Please keep your freedumb away from my freedom.”

Below are three videos, with a combined total of only seven minutes, they are all great clips, that I feel relate perfectly to normal corporate life and real freedom.

Enjoy!

Nov
27

Epic Road Rage Win

An epic display of bad driving, road rage, and revenge.

Nov
12

Funny Shirts Changed My World

I don’t know if you have visited the retail part of this website yet, but I happen to have what I feel is several hundred of the funniest shirts ever created. I know that not everyone shares my sense of humor, some will likely be offended, and some people will just not get it, but to me I have the greatest collection of funny shirts in all the world. Believe it or not though, when I first started selling funny shirts, I was not the type of person who would actually wear them, in fact my original idea with this website was not to sell any funny t-shirts at all, but to sell a line of great tribal shirts I used to buy and wear. However by the time I was ready to sell the tribal shirts, the manufacturer of the shirts did a ridiculously stupid thing, he fired his artist, and stopped printing his great designs. I had already built the website and had to sell something, and so began my quest for really funny shirts.

As time went on, the website grew, and with it my collection of funny shirts, at the same time my own tribal t-shirts were becoming old, and my girlfriend used to laugh at how I was this great internet t-shirt retailer that wore old shirts with holes in them. I did see the humor in it, and having such a large collection of shirts on hand at any one minute, it was very easy just to toss the shirt in the trash and grab a new one. So one summer day, I tossed out my old shirt, grabbed one of my fresh beautiful funny shirts from my collection, a shirt I like to call Hypno Monkey featuring a chimpanzee wearing headphones in the middle of a yellow swirl, and stepped out the door to the public.

Hypno Monkey Shirt

I live in a very large and busy city that has a great public transportation system, so have not owned a car in years, it is not a matter of money, it is just to me cars were supposed to be a convenience, and the transit is so good here, to me they are actually an inconvenience. So after thirty seconds or so waiting for the bus, it arrived and I stepped on. Unfortunately no seat was available so two or three of us were forced to stand.

The bus left the stop and I was looking out the window enjoying the view, and looking around a bit at the other passengers, there was a young kid smiling at me, that was nice, and a very pretty brunet smiling at me, that was nice also, I of course smiled back at both of them, and the bus continued down the road. I looked around the bus again at a few people and noticed most of them were very friendly towards me. This seemed to continue with me all day long as I went to the mall and ate some lunch. I was feeling particularly handsome this day, since I must have had smiles and eye contact from about ten or so women by this time, and also a couple of men smiled at me, that was uncommon, and a bit mysterious. I didn’t really put two and two together until I went to wash my hands and looked in the mirror, which of course reflected back to me not only my face, but also that of the silly chimp on my shirt.

Wow I thought, if you smile the world smiles back at you, but if you wear a good funny shirt, the world smiles at you first, and then you smile back. Now that is something cool. I can’t believe I never knew this before. Also I found that I was actually walking around with a smile on my face more, not just because of the motion of smiling back, but because I was actually happier.

I wear funny shirts now most of the time, and my son does also, because of this we live in a happier world than we did before, people around us are all very nice to us, occasionally laughing can be heard around us, and sometimes people that normally would not talk to us strike up friendly conversations.

I understand the world was not changed by me wearing  funny shirts, but without a doubt, wearing funny shirts changed my world.

Go to top
Translate »