Birth and Death, and In Between

Here are some motes from What to Do Between Birth and Death: The Art of Growing Up, by Charles Spezzano, Ph.D. (William Morrow):

* You don’t really pay for things with money. You pay for them with time. “In five years, I’ll have put enough away to buy that vacation house we want. Then I’ll slow down or get out of this business altogether.” Okay, that means the house will cost you five years. That’s one-twelfth of your adult life.

* Translate the dollar value of the car or the house or anything else into time, and then see if it’s still worth it. Sometimes you can’t do what you want and have what you want at once because each requires a different expenditure of time. Those are the moments when you have to think of the cost of the thing in terms of time and not dollars.

* The phrase “spending your time” is not a metaphor. It’s how life works.