Not Enough Time To Become Time Independent

It would seem that the biggest detriment to becoming financially secure and independent is not having time to pursue it.

Most people live their lives by selling off portions of their existence to others, generally for an hourly rate or salary. You work a certain number of hours and your employer (or your clients if you are a freelancer) will give you a certain amount of money back to compensate you for your time.

The system seems to work well, but there are two very serious problems with this model. The most obvious being that you have to work. If you don’t work, you don’t make any money. The second (and perhaps more important) issue is that the maximum amount of money that can be made has a limit. If you work for someone else, your hourly rate is restricted, if you are a freelancer, you can likely only charge so much before your clients go elsewhere. Even if you receive a high hourly rate, you still will be limited by the total amount of time available to you.

Smart people have found ways to sever the tie between their time and their income. A good example of this is an author who invests their time writing a novel. After the novel is written, every time someone buys the book, income is made. There really isn’t a limit on how much can be made and after the initial investment of time spent writing the book, the income isn’t really tied to how much the author works. There is of course time that should be spent on marketing (advertising, writing promotional material, etc…), but in reality these could be outsourced to others.

The problem that most of us face however is that we can’t invest the time initially because we are too busy working to fund our life. It would seem as though our desire to live like everyone else (ie. expensively) is keeping us from actually freeing ourselves.

While difficult, severing the time between income and time can be available to anyone, but less time needs to be devoted to funding and maintaining a lifestyle, and as much time as possible needs to be spent creating, experimenting, and innovating.

Our standard modus operandi is to buy those desired possessions as soon as we can afford them. This tactic will lead to a life forever entrenched in being a slave to someone. If we can break the pattern, live cheaply, and create something of real value, the financial return will likely come in the future, giving us the money that we both need and want, but without the servitude.