How to lose time and money

There are many positive activities that can be both productive and fun, including a card game with friends. In that case, you are investing in to those relationships and fulfilling a very basic human desire for socialization.

It's not that you're not getting anything done. You're just getting different things done. Compare that to a day in front of the TV. Can you say you've gotten anything out of it? Did you learn anything? Were you able to relieve stress or relax? Perhaps in small quantities TV can provide those benefits, but would trading your entire day be worth it?

Now to take your card playing to an extreme, would it be beneficial for someone like the president to spend an entire day playing cards with non-political friends? Sure the president needs a vacation every once in a while, but assume that this is not a vacation day. There are many more important things that should be done, and even with the relaxation and socialization benefits that card playing with friends has, I believe the president's "wasting time" alarm would go off. There are elections to win and speeches to give. But what about spending an entire day reviewing a minor bill? Sure, bills are important. After all, the president should know about what new laws are being considered. Even so, an entire day could go by without the president thinking "this is a waste of time". After all, he's not playing. He's working.

Same story for me as far as MMORPG's, Farmville and similar go. I get super addicted for a week and play probably 8 hours a day, then I just get bored. The whole thing is vaguely addicting, but ultimately completely uninteresting.

If I'm going to watch a character level up I'd much rather hit the gym. The increasing weights you can lift offer a nice chance for some nerdy analysis while you're also actually doing something useful.

If Paul Graham realized that people can easily lose lots of money by investing, why did he devote himself to investing large amounts of his own money in high-risk businesses?

I'm not being facetious, I just think that seems contradictory. If I had a lot of money and that same knowledge, I would invest very conservatively.

"People fright at the concept of losing their money, yet they slave away their time without a second thought."

-Seneca the Younger, from Letters from a Stoic (highly recommended)

I think slaving away doing something you hate is far more harmful than "wasting" time having fun. I get more out of playing hacky sack and/or listening to podcasts than any homework or school work.

So, in relation to this article, I think we should maybe consider "losing time" as doing anything that you deeply don't want to do but are doing just to get more money.

The relationship between time and money is a fascinating one. Great article PG.