The last two weeks have been crazy busy for me. I honestly can’t remember a recent stretch where I’ve had so little free time—even time to capture my thoughts. I’ve tried to work on that over the years, because if I don’t write ideas down right away, they vanish. And of course, those are always the best ideas—the ones lost forever.

When I was younger, I wanted money. I tried to choose a career instead of just a job, and I saved and invested diligently. But eventually, I realized I didn’t have time to enjoy any of it. So my goals shifted to wanting both money and time. But as the saying goes, time is money—sigh.

After a while, I managed a kind of balance between the two, and I began accumulating things. Even though the best things in life aren’t things, we all have our guilty pleasures—our creature comforts, the items that make life just a little more pleasant. And for things, you need space. So now my wants expanded to time, money, and space. Oh, and someone to share it all with.

As I’ve grown older (and hopefully wiser), time has become more valuable. I can see retirement on the horizon—and beyond that, the inevitable. But even now, time isn’t my greatest desire. What I value most these days is energy.

In this new paradigm, time is not money—it’s energy. Time without energy is wasted time. I already have most of what I’ve ever needed or truly wanted. I have space. Money is stable. But time and energy? Not so much—see the start of this post.

So, if I were to offer a small piece of life wisdom, it would be this: you need money, time, space, and energy. And, as always, someone to share it with.

SSBK – Jim Cobb