Time: The Only Fairness in the World | The Value of Time

The only thing this world does fairly for us is time.

I once wrote about how the essence of resource allocation is resource substitution, and provided some formulas for how resources can be exchanged for one another, such as exchanging money for time or time for money.

Essentially, time serves as the universal medium of exchange. In the transaction cycle where we trade labor for money, then money for consumer goods, money itself is that medium—a common measure that allows all resources to be evaluated on the same scale, keeping the entire exchange system smooth and ensuring resources are used as efficiently as possible.

Back to the main point: the only thing this world does fairly for us is time. Time is the only independent, self-contained attribute.

Its dimension is singular—we can only move from past to future, and a person’s life only spans from birth to death.

Everyone receives the same fixed allocation of time per unit: 24 hours a day.

In other words, every person is compelled to live through each 24-hour day, using their remaining alive time to achieve something.

This is a lot like a time-limited level-clearing game, such as Super Mario (collecting mushrooms).

Every player faces the same time limit on the same level—a few minutes to reach the end and advance. What you do with that time depends entirely on your own skill.

Some players care more about collecting coins along the way, picking up every last one, and end up running out of time before they finish.

Smarter players pick only what they need, take shortcuts, beat the level in the shortest time possible, and still get rewarded for the time left over.

The items on the path—coins, bullets, stars—are all tools that help you clear the level. Along the way, you can choose to waste some time collecting lots of coins, or sacrifice time to grab useful道具 like bullets.

These道具 help you defeat the little monsters or obstacles standing in your way.

道具 = money, assets, skills, and so on.

The one and only real constraint is time.

That’s what life is: a game where you collect道具 to clear obstacles, striving for the highest achievements within your finite lifetime.

Time is the most precious thing we have.

What I recommend is sustainable, compounding time investment—living with compounding returns, as the saying goes.

Time: The Only Fairness in the World | The Value of Time

Like this image shows, as time goes on, the ultimate value keeps growing—it never reverses (and by “reverse growth” I mean falling back).

For example, learning a skill: as time passes and proficiency builds, the skill becomes something that consistently brings value whenever you use it.

Taking a WeChat public account, for instance: follower counts mostly rise over time, and monetizing that traffic fits this growth curve perfectly. At the start, growth is slow and hard, but once you build a solid follower base, word spreads faster and your follower count takes off. I have a friend who went from one or two followers at first, then tens, then hundreds.

Because time is one-dimensional and irreversible—from past to future, never back—history rolls forward, making each moment especially important.

Financial management offers the simplest example: a product yielding 20% this year. Having 1 million before that year is very different from having 1 million after.

That’s why there’s another famous quote: the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The second-best time is now.

So for most things, the earlier, the better. (Amazon, for example—if you look at its stock, you’ll see how it’s grown over the years.)

Anything that follows a compounding curve—anything that grows in value over time—is better invested in as early as possible.