Time is the most valuable resource we receive completely free of charge. These days, you can buy almost anything with money — health, relationships, emotions. But you cannot buy even a single second or fleeting moment of your life. How much would you be willing to give for an extra five minutes of life?
To truly appreciate time, we must first understand what it is.
The nature of time has perplexed the greatest minds on Earth for thousands of years — from Vedic sages to modern philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians. Democritus, Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Newton, and Einstein each spent years trying to grasp the essence of time.
Over the past three thousand years, four main philosophical concepts of time have emerged: substantial, relational, static, and dynamic. Their key differences lie in how they define the relationship between time and objects. Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam all offer their own perspectives on time, yet each fits into one of these four fundamental frameworks.
The concept of time evolves slowly. It took over three centuries to move from Newton’s idea of absolute time — given by God and separate from objects — to Einstein’s theory of relativity, which explained that time depends on the observer’s location, speed, and gravity. From there, the very notion of absolute time gradually faded from scientific use.
Despite the work of the world’s brightest minds, no one has yet provided a definitive answer to the question, “What is time?” As early as the 4th century, Saint Augustine remarked, “What is time? If no one asks me, I know. But if I try to explain it, I do not know”.
Einstein once called time “a stubborn illusion”. In plain terms, scientists are suggesting that time may not actually exist at all. So why is this illusion so precious to us?
In the modern world, the value of time is defined by the individual — and by circumstances.
Culture, religion, and society all influence our relationship with time. Some African tribes, for example, still live strictly in the present, experiencing only the here and now as dictated by natural rhythms and daily life.
In contrast, societies in North America and Europe are future-oriented, while many post-Soviet cultures remain anchored in the past. Yet under extraordinary circumstances, our perception of time changes regardless of cultural context — time seems to shrink in moments of crisis, or stretch painfully long when waiting for something important.
In business, time is not just valuable — it’s measurable. One of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution, and the face on its most expensive banknote, Benjamin Franklin, famously wrote: “Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle one-half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought to consider that he has really spent… five shillings more”.
It’s no wonder his portrait has adorned the hundred-dollar bill for over a century.
Modern humans are paradoxical creatures. They treat their most precious resource — time — with inexplicable carelessness. They never seem to have enough of it for what truly matters: their health, their soul, or their loved ones. They convert time into value using strange, irrational, and constantly shifting personal exchange rates.
People pay for time without hesitation — to lawyers, therapists, nannies, personal trainers, consultants. They are willing to spend money to speed up decisions, reduce travel time, or be compensated for delays. In doing so, they assign a specific value to their own time.
At the same time, this priceless resource is wasted on brainless TV shows, random websites, and endless scrolling through social media. People let time slip through their fingers in meaningless meetings and passive distractions. They spend decades in well-paid but joyless jobs, chasing goals imposed by society.
I can calculate the cost of time in a business project — the price of delay or the premium for decisiveness. I can estimate the financial value of an employee’s time. But I doubt anyone could ever determine the true price of a minute of someone’s life. Time is priceless, and no regulator on Earth can set a real exchange rate or monetary equivalent for it.
You want to truly understand how priceless time is, try calculating how much of it you hypothetically have left in your life. All you need to do is take the average life expectancy in your country and subtract your current age. Then convert the remaining years into minutes.
For example, in the United States, the average life expectancy for men is about 76 years. In Ukraine (before the full-scale war), it was around 66. Let’s imagine you’re a 40-year-old man living in Ukraine. That means your estimated remaining lifespan is 26 years — which actually translates into just 13,674,960 minutes, assuming 525,600 minutes per year (plus a few more for leap years).
Research shows that people aged 40 to 50 spend, on average, about 2.5 hours a day watching television and 1.5 hours on social media. That adds up to 87,600 minutes per year — nearly 17% of your remaining time, or one-sixth of your life, spent in front of screens.
Another third of life is spent sleeping. Almost a quarter is consumed by work — and that’s assuming you have two full days off per week and work 8-hour days (excluding commuting time).
In total, three-quarters of your life go to screens, sleep, and work. That leaves, at most, a quarter of your life — around 360 minutes per day — for everything else. In reality, it’s even less. Now try to grasp the value of each minute — and draw your own conclusions.
Sergiy Wenger
