It's a Miracle - Win With Flynn

“The probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.” – Lewis Thomas

Your life story is a miracle.

Your people survived 9/11, conflicts in the Middle East, Vietnam, and both World Wars. Before them, there was the Great Depression, the Spanish Flu, and the Civil War. Your ancestors dodged the Black Death, survived the Crusades, lived through the fall of Rome, the Viking age, Attila the Hun, and Vesuvius.

And don’t get me started on the Bronze and Ice Ages.

These same people mastered fire, developed language, created art, domesticated plants and animals, built cities, invented writing, engineered marvels, explored the world, and unlocked scientific secrets leading to modern technology and medicine.

All of that took place in the blink of a cosmic eye.

The Cosmic Calendar

“Life moves pretty fast,” Ferris Bueller said, breaking the third wall, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” I didn’t really understood what Ferris was telling me for another 30 years. Bueller was ahead of his time.

Consider the cosmic calendar, which compresses the 13.8 billion year history of the universe into a single calendar year. Using that scale, the Big Bang was at midnight on January 1st. The Milky Way galaxy formed around March 16, our solar system on September 2, and Earth on September 6. Complex life emerged on November 9, dinosaurs appeared on Christmas Day and vanished by December 30. All of human history? That’s just the last 27 seconds of December 31st.

Think about that as you and your loved ones (and Ryan Seacrest) count down to a New Year’s smooch.

the cosmic calendar, it's a miracle that we get these last few seconds — the cosmic calendar

What is a Time Billionaire?

A time billionaire has a billion or more seconds left to live, which translates to roughly 31 years. A time millionaire, as a contrast, is living in relative poverty, on their death bed, with just 11 days left to hang with us mortals.

Are you a time billionaire?

If you’re under 60, you likely are, but who can say for sure? Picture your life’s seconds like a piggy bank—starting at birth, it’s filled with billions—emptying slowly at first, then all at once.

Warren Buffett once said, “I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time.” And in his memoir How to Get Rich, Felix Dennis wrote, “Could you turn the clock back for me by forty years, I would willingly swap you every penny and every possession I own in return. And I would have the better of the bargain, too!”

Dennis was looking for an extra billion between the couch cushions. Because walking among us mortals is the best.

Would titans like Bezos, Musk, and Gates pay $10 per second for more time? $315 million a year?

Not a chance.

They’d pay twice that or more, and have the better of the bargain, too!

But I’m not selling.

Time vs. Money

I know, I know, a billion is a lot. Most people, even those with grand ambitions, don’t have their eyes set on billions. But I’ve often thought of having a cool $100 Million in the bank. And I’m a blogger.

The point is, we get caught in a pickle, between money and moments.

But if we can learn one thing from the uber rich, it’s that we should optimize time instead of treasure.

Over the last 31 years, I’ve used a billion seconds. We all have. And looking back I realize most of that time wasn’t mine. I spent some, and sold off a lot more. To the highest bidder! I was in school or at the office, trading that time for an imagined future. And feeling impoverished the whole way through. Anxiety, worry, fear of missing out (FOMO), but missing out on what? Status, money, things. All the while, I was spending my most precious commodity: time.

What would these billionaires give for another lifetime? What would they do with that kind of miracle?

Anyone who grew up on A Christmas Carol knows that a single haunted night can be a miracle of its own. A reminder to use those billions on what is important. Otherwise, regardless what the ledger tells you, you’ll be impoverished and susceptible.

From Felix Dennis again, “If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say $60 or $80 million), as quickly as I could—hopefully by the time I was thirty-five years old. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees.”

“Comfortably” is a relative term, but you get the idea. And if pressed, I’m sure you could get Dennis to admit, you can write poetry and plant trees with quite a bit less. But what he wanted was time to do what he enjoyed.

When I was employed, my best weeks were never based on the work. It was always vacations and trips. I was buying my time back from my keeper. Being a time billionaire means you have the freedom to use your time as you choose, finding joy in how it’s spent.

When I’m able to choose, when I have autonomy, I feel like a billionaire. Because I am a billionaire. That feeling leads to more good days than bad—and that’s the kind of wealth I’m really after.

Your Money or Your Life?

Everything in life has a cost – time, money, opportunity, or all the above.

A bad book, a bad movie, they waste both time and money, but a good one? It can be worth 100x the price. The monetary cost is nothing compared to the time, but one simple idea, an “aha!” moment, can change everything.

So use your billions, but don’t squander them. Don’t sell them off to the highest bidder—invest them in living. Your life will forever fall on this final day of the cosmic calendar, these final precious seconds. And that is plenty of time. “You only live once,” Mae West said, “but if you do it right, once is enough.”

I mean, how many miracles can a person ask for?

Three.

Two.

One.