Here’s the Thing -- Part 1

Hmm, squash AND kisses?

Okay, so let’s say a long time ago, I worked hard in the field, you worked hard in the field, but I had a green thumb for carrots, you were extra good at squash. “How’s about a trade,” I ask, and I walk away a few carrots shy, but with an acorn squash worth sixty kisses from mi amor at the house. 

Fast forward a bunch. Now we’re trading our stuff for coins and paper money. The money is a concrete symbol of the value we place on the stuff, and that way, I can trade with a lot more people for a lot more different stuff. My dozen carrots used to be worth a squash, but now they’re worth two copper coins, which is how much I might pay for a squash. But they’re also worth a loaf of bread, or a hot bath, or a new pair of laces on my shoes.

And here we are today. We’ve come a long way, it seems, and now we have more to trade for even more different things. No more farming for us, thank you. Now we trade services for money, and talents, and educations. Now there are even jobs that place value not on something we’ve made, but on our very time. If you show up and do whatever we give you to do, we will place a monetary value not on something you’re skilled at, or want to do, but simply for your time.

All the money you want,
for all the time that you have.

I don’t know about you, but my jobs over the past six years have been sticklers for being there, five days a week, nine hours a day. We get a lunch hour, yes, but it’s coverage they want, and coverage they’re getting. Let’s look at this through the week: I get up at 6, leave at 7, get to work at 8, stay until 5, and get home again near 6. If I ever hope to get 8 hours of sleep at night (I don’t), then I’ve spent almost 12 of my 16 waking hours at work or getting to work or getting home from work. (And still only getting paid for 8 of them!) The other 4 are for the rest of my life, to spend as I wish on things like family, or passions, or causes, or housework.

It’s the way our economy is set up, sure, a holdover from long days on the farm, or at the factory, maybe, but it’s what’s expected, and I’ve bought into it. I’ve traded my valuable, once in a lifetime time for money, and not for very much at that, or doing anything that I really like or love for that matter.

And that’s why I’ve decided to try and make a thing that I can trade for money instead. Maybe I can find a thing that will trade for more money than my time will. Perhaps I can find one that will pay me more than once. 

Possibly I already have, but of course for that you'll need to read Part 2! (Coming soon...)