Resources

During a casual conversation at work the other day a couple of Southern Man's colleagues were shocked and even a bit alarmed at learning that Southern Man doesn't watch television - indeed, that Southern Man doesn't even have any form of media service. Not even an antenna and converter box. And 3G over the air that varies from one bar to "no service." A puzzled friend asked "So just what do you do in the evenings without TV or the Internet?"'

The Southern Children felt the same way; the girls in particular would have thought that their world had come to an end without cable TV and (in their teen years) high-speed Internet. "What did you do?" they would ask, and Southern Man would tell them about this great toy called "outside" that included a huge open field full of gullies and bike trails and streams that today is Yukon Park. But he digresses...

No TV is actually bad. He needs to get a converter box or at least a weather radio for those stormy Tornado Alley nights. But other than that...what's the point? Southern Man has never been one to watch much TV anyway unless it's (a) really interesting and (b) with a cuddle bunny friend. If it gets too quiet The Trailer has a little 9" TV and a DVD player and Southern Man has lots of DVDs and he'll happily throw in a familiar movie or a disc of House episodes or whatever. There are too many other things he'd rather do with his alone time like geocache or hike or read or play video games.

And that leads us to the actual topic of today's rambling, and that is the one resource that you really have. It's not your house or your car or your classic rock record collection; those are just things you've accumulated. The one resource that is truly yours, over which you have control, and of which there is only a limited and non-renewable quantity, is time.

Southern Man has been pondering time and mortality of late. He figures that if he lives to Southern Father's age he's at about the two-thirds mark of his life. That's really not too bad, but it's not a lot, either, and that time should be used wisely. And to Southern Man that means spending time doing things you enjoy, and spending time with people you love. Indeed, Southern Man's definition of "wealth" is "enough money to satisfy your obligations, and time to do the things you enjoy."

Some bloggers are fairly militant about this. Use every moment for self-improvement, they say - work out or learn a new language or aquire a new skill or write the Great American Novel or whatever. Southern Man disagrees. You need some time to relax, to play games, to sit by the water and just chill out. Southern Man actually does a fair amount of this - he just doesn't do much in front of a TV. But he is keenly aware that his time is truly the one thing that is his, and he intends to spend it wisely. That's the reason for his "go out" rule - if given a choice between staying in (which he is most happy to do) or go out with friends or family, he'll go out. The reward is time well spent. So recognize the value of your time and use it wisely.

Inspired by a few weeks of reflection and triggered by this post at Captain Capitalism and this one at 3rd Millenium Men.