Chapter 196

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” - Henry David Thoreau

I meet very few people who calculate life this way. We should though. Like the meeting I have in about an hour from now, that I have dodged, ducked, avoided and shrank from over and over again, because there is about a 99% certainty that it will cost me at least an hour of my short life, and give me nothing in return. That is a cost that is unacceptable. It is one that I avoid ferociously (and successfully most of the time) though I got trapped into this one today with no more delays being socially acceptable, even though not even that can stop me most of the time.

There is no more sure way to end our relationship than for you to waste my time, show up late for an agreed upon meeting, or fail to deliver what you promised. Its nothing personal, the cost is just too high. I only have so many hours to give, and if you are frivolous about one of my hours, then I am going to be very upset and never give you an opportunity to ever do so again. Socially acceptable or not. This is one of the benefits of being almost 60 years old, that I can get away with being eccentric and unwieldy and socially misfiring. People will just write it off to age and Alzheimer’s, and forgive you.

If you think to change the world and do something important with your life, then by all means possible stop giving away yourself to meaningless meetings that bear no reciprocity of value for the time given.