You can buy time

You can’t buy time, the common saying goes. Well, it’s wrong.

Everything moves and due to our memory we understand the difference between positions A and B. If a thing changes places rapidly, we might say it’s fast, otherwise we might say it’s slow.

We have also identified that it’s helpful to keep track of, say, movements of the sun to coordinate our efforts.

Time is a concept born from our perception of movement of all the particles in the universe and our need for cooperation.

What does this mean in the context of the saying “you can’t buy more time”? I hear you ask.

Let’s restate the question.

What do we really mean when we say we have a finite amount of time?

We mean that at some point in the future our body will break down, some part of the complex system will cease to function and thus snuff out the spark of life within us forever. A part of the machine will fail.

But we can influence how are fast that moment comes. We can take good care of all the cogs in our machine, ensuring all runs smoothly.

Conversely, we can take incredibly bad care of the cogs, ensuring the failure comes sooner.

The determining factors are behaviors that enable our body to function better or worse. Like eating healthy or eating poorly.

If we buy a salad instead of french fries, it will make our body function better, which will postpone the failure of the system. We are in fact buying more future moments of our body functioning.

When you spend money in order to beneficially impact the state of your body, you are directly buying time, which means life.

So are you buying time? Or are you buying death?