Work, Family, Fitness, Kids, or Friends?
Have you ever found time to sort out your bank accounts? Mutual funds? direct shares…?
Is it easy to find time to sit with your family and talk about financial goals?
Well, it is not about time, I think it is about asking yourself “do you have the ENERGY to do these mundane things”. Normally it is not time, but the energy that we lack. We all find time to do things that we love to do or at least like to do. For example a lady who loves movies will happily agree to put the food away in a fridge if she is offered food and movie, but will say “food is already made” if the offer is to go out with friends she is not keen to meet. Just a matter of priorities or energy.
Doing a startup, meeting with friends, having a drink, Netflix, IPL, spending time with family, going for a run, catching up with your investments and taxation.
Tell me how much can you manage?
Then you have to prioritize. My friend offers to drop his daughter to the college – gives him 30 minutes with her. Another goes grocery shopping with his children or wife. For most of us it is fitness and spending time with friends which suffers. Of course we choose – but later on pretend that the choice was forced upon us.
Some start up entrepreneurs pretend that they can manage their work in 40 hours and then find time for fitness, family, friends and Netflix. I surely cannot. What suffers is fitness and friends. At least talking to my mom I do from airport lounges – and it can be pretty long talks! Problem is she is far more active than I am – so there are times when I hear her say “I gotta go”. Lol. I realize that my parents, sibling, cousins, and progeny are busier than me. Sigh.
I have various friends groups – so I catch up with somebody or the other. Luckily the friends group in running means joint runs are with friends – and on slow runs we can catch up with gossip too. Harshad, Ilfs, Chanda, ….!! bfsi friends you see.
However, I have no time for Netflix. I hit the snooze button very early – say 10pm. So I am now to zero tv – except if I am doing some work and the tv is on. More writing and less tv.
We make our choices – business, writing, friends, fitness, family, travel – but at the end of the year pretend as though somebody else made the choice!!
Sachin
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I am surprised when people say they have back pain issues but proudly say that they work 24 hours. In other words they are saying you have a lot of time for fun but they are always so busy. What the heck?
krishna arani
Totally agree, its a shame but I admit that I choose to spend time on everything but not much time family which I realized after 5 years (yes it took 5 years).
prasoon
how true !!. Thanks a ton ,Subra sir !
Jitu
Hi Subra,
Your blogpost wouldn’t have been more timely.