In the new year, spend your time wisely

TWO thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca lambasted the short-sightedness of his fellows in their attitude towards time, in words that still resound chillingly today.

In guarding their wealth, people are miserly, he said. When it comes to time, however, people squander it as if they had a lot to spare, when they should be stingy instead.

"Many men say: 'After I turn 50, I shall retire, my 60th year shall release me from public duties'. And what guarantee have you that your life will last longer?" he asked.

An excerpt in his essay titled "De brevitate vitae" or "On the Shortness of Life" is worth quoting at length. Seneca imagined questioning old men about how much time they wasted.

As translated from Latin by John Basore: "Come now, recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. . .

"Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!"

In a fast-paced, wealthy city such as Singapore, it is worth asking whether we, like the people in Seneca's crosshairs, have wasted more time in our lives than we should.

This column has, in the last couple of years, urged readers to treat their money carefully in two ways: saving right and investing well.

On saving, we have discussed how one should not blindly subscribe to notions of material comfort, such as cars condominiums, or expensive holidays. On the other extreme, neither should one be niggardly with the people closest to you.

On investing, we sought to build a knowledge base for investors around issues such as financial statements and stock analysis. Future pieces will discuss issues such as risk tolerance and time horizon.

Ultimately, both saving and investing are concepts inextricably linked with time. It takes time to build up a nest egg or save for your dream purchase.

However, if your goals rest upon faulty premises, you might waste a lot of time saving and investing to attain them.

Some people I know imagine they can never retire without a certain "number". I've heard figures such as S$2 million, S$10 million or S$50 million, or a cash-flow stream of S$30,000 or S$50,000 a month.

Ironically, once people achieve the number, they tend to set themselves a higher one, because they have become used to the lifestyle they once looked forward to and are no longer satisfied.

Other financial aspirations I hear include buying a condominium in Orchard, buying a "continental car", which refers to buying European brands (which currently cost more than S$200,000) versus cheaper Japanese ones, or putting a future child through an overseas university education.

A few months ago, as I was spending some time in other parts of Asia, I was hearing aspirations of a different sort. A friend of a friend in Nepal, for example, recently sank his savings of US$5,000 into a goat farm, starting out with 20 goats. This is a large sum in a country where labour costs can be a few US dollars a person a day. His long-term aim is to save US$50,000 to expand his farm to 200 goats, and plant fruit trees on his land.

Ever-rising expectations

A farmer I met in rural Vietnam, meanwhile, just harvested 200kg of unhusked rice after a rice season of several months, and sold it for US$60. That was not enough to fund his daughter's first year in a university in Saigon, which can cost US$250. So he sold a prized calf. Another young man I met plans to raise a few hundred dollars from fellow villagers so that he can install night lights along the roads leading to his village.

Financially speaking, the average Singaporean can earn enough to fulfil some of the aspirations of people in neighbouring countries in the blink of an eye.

However, in Singapore and other more developed countries, even as workers earn more than enough to satisfy basic needs, they seem just as busy, if not busier, in their pursuit of their goals. They complain they have no time, and no money.

This phenomenon is partly caused by ever-rising expectations. Humans are constantly on what psychologists call the "hedonic treadmill". People quickly get used to changes in their life, be it a new car or a different standard of living. There is no permanent increase in feelings of happiness even as in absolute terms, wealth and standards of living have increased.

Other possible reasons for a sense of anxiety over time among the well-off, as pointed out by The Economist magazine in a Christmas issue article, are higher returns from work, the explosion in available goods to spend time on, the use of email and smartphones, higher costs of education and housing in the rich world, rising job insecurity, and busyness as a mark of social status.

Singapore as a nation has grown relatively rich in the last 50 years. Yet Singaporeans still spend much of their time pursuing even-loftier goals, many of them financial in nature. Some goals are not worth spending time on.

Seneca had harsh words for those who wasted their time, and presumably their money, on drink and lust. In modern Singapore, I can add three items to that list: working too much to support an extravagant lifestyle, spending too much time in front of a screen, and griping unnecessarily about one's life.

Nobody regrets on his deathbed that he has not worked hard enough, but more how he hasn't spent enough time with loved ones.

The smartphone and computer contain too many distractions that prevent people from actually engaging in meaningful conversations with each other.

Complaining can draw attention to important issues. However, sometimes it is far more productive to take concrete action to improve one's lot in life.

For the year ahead, my wish for the working young is for them to set their financial goals with some perspective, and set meaningful goals to benefit their loved ones and the world at large.

With some luck, enterprise and discipline, we will continue depositing more and more money in the bank. But we will never stop making withdrawals from our balance of time. May we be frugal with its use.

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