They Say You Can’t Buy Time...They’re Wrong

Time is our most valuable currency.

You’ve heard this song before. You can accrue more money, more stuff, more status, but not time. You can’t buy time on Amazon and have it ship same-day like your favorite coffee brand.

The clock started ticking at the beginning of the universe and streams only in one direction.

You can however extend the time you do have. You can limit how fast the sand in the hour glass flows. In effect, buying more time.

Here’s how.

Not months…

The health benefits of a physical fitness program are numerous. Let’s look at the data:

• Physical activity reduces many major mortality risk factors including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer

• All-cause mortality is decreased by roughly 30% — 35% in physically active individuals as compared to inactive individuals

And to quote directly from the National Library of Medicine:

“Hence, because a 40% lower mortality rate corresponds to an approximately 5-year higher life expectancy, one would expect an approximately 3.5 to 4.0-year higher life expectancy in physically active persons compared to that in inactive persons.”

Engaging in regular physical activity adds 3.5–4 years to your life.

Years, not months.

The ramifications

3.5–4 years.

That’s another 1,277.5 –1,460 days of life on this planet. 30,660 – 35,040 additional hours spent with family and friends.

That’s 1,839,600 – 2,102,400 more seconds riding motorcycles, climbing mountains, fishing, painting, watching classic movies, listening to music, rock-climbing, bike riding, writing, reading, running, and making model airplanes.

We have but one life on this earth. There is so much to do, so much to explore, so much to experience. You owe it to yourself to stick around as long as you can.

Getting started

Getting started is the hardest part. With anything.

Good thing fitness isn’t rocket science. There’s no secret sauce. It just takes a desire to change and a little bit of grit.

Start small. Reevaluate your habits. Are you physically active at all? What’s in your refrigerator? Are you getting enough sleep? These are the biggest levers you can pull right off the bat.

Don’t jump in all at once. If you’re not very active, start walking for 30 minutes 3x per week. Then up it to 5. Then up your sessions to an hour.

If you’re not eating well, make sure 1 meal per day has healthy servings of fruits and vegetables. Then 2, then 3.

If you’re not sleeping enough, start going to bed 15 minutes earlier every night. That’s over 100 minutes a week! Then 30 minutes, earlier, then 45…you get the picture.

They say you can’t buy time. And that’s true. But you can extend the time you do have.

So what’s the difference?