Four thousand weeks is the average lifespan of a person living in the modern world. With exercise and healthy living, you may push that number out a couple of months. Then again a disease or accident may just as easily cut it short. Give or take, 4,000 weeks is all the time you have to build the life you want.
Admittedly, such framing is stark, but it’s something we all understand on a gut level: Our time is limited, and that makes it the most precious resource we have. Yet when it comes to how we use our time, it’s often in service of money.
We spend more hours on paid work per day than any other activity except sleep — enough to subtract more than 500 weeks from a person’s 4,000. And that figure only accounts for the earning of money. When you factor in budgeting, spending, investing, and fretting over finances, then money even devours time allotted for unpaid work or “leisure” activities.
All the while, our lives tick silently away.
Of course, money is necessary. You need it to buy food, pay bills, prepare for retirement, and perform a litany of other daily to-dos. However, research suggests that once your income grows in excess of a subsistence minimum, having a money-centric mindset can be detrimental to your subjective well-being.
