A Simple Decision That Changed My Financial Life
My relationship with money is now more yummy
I grew up poor.
My parents had to cut expenses in every corner.
Sometimes I was without the internet and with a certain degree of comfort, it is possible to read a lot.
I managed to advance several chapters of many great books. I am even re-reading a book that I read five years ago.
Remembering this story made me find the time and inspiration to write this article.
One of the habits that I have adopted in the last 8 years and that have transformed my life the most was reading and writing.
I always thought that, because of the rush of daily life, I didn’t have much time to read and write, but I always found a way.
Until I read Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek.
Selective Ignorance
It was in this book that, for the first time, I had access to the concept of selective ignorance.
Ignorance, although a strong word, means that someone has no science, knowledge, or competence in a certain subject.
When it comes to nuclear physics, for example, I am completely ignorant.
There is a big difference between information and knowledge.
Simply put, newspapers bring information and books bring knowledge (there are exceptions, of course).
Knowing about the latest disaster, political crisis, price of a barrel of oil or even the latest divorce of a famous does not change my life at all.
And if you stop to think about it, the major newspapers, television news, and Internet portals report events that do not change your life.
They may impact you in some way, but most of the time you have no influence on a possible change.
After understanding this difference, I simply stopped watching TV news and reading newspapers or news on internet portals.
I even stopped watching TV.
Actually, to be completely honest with you, I watch movies and series on Netflix and some live sporting events and animal documentaries.
But I haven’t watched regular TV programming in a few years.
I don’t know what the last 10 most successful Turkish and Mexican soap operas were. Although in the past I used to like soap operas so much.
And it hasn’t changed my life at all.
I mean, it has changed a lot.
The big change
The lack of this information did not change my life, but this free time allowed me to acquire much more knowledge.
The biggest mistake you can make is to think that you “finished your studies” after getting your college degree.
I guarantee you that 100% of the knowledge that is bringing me closer to my financial freedom was acquired after finishing school.
If you read about the top habits of rich people, you will find on this list reading and the habit of not watching TV.
This happens for nothing.
One of the greatest virtues of rich people is to know the value of time.
Lost money can be recovered.
But wasted time never comes back to you.
Many people don’t value their time and waste it in the worst possible ways.
By putting selective ignorance into practice in your life, I guarantee that you will have free time for more valuable activities.
Likewise, by deciding to buy a good book instead of just looking for free information on the Internet, you invest a small amount of money to gain a lot of time.
I get tired of hearing or reading phrases like this:
I don’t know how a person spends money to buy a book XYZ or course ABCD when it is possible to find everything for free on the internet…
Is the person who says this completely wrong?
Not necessarily.
Many times, you can have access to certain knowledge for free.
So where is the mistake?
The same person who says phrases like this does not know how to value his or her time.
When you buy a great book or course, you save a lot of time and accelerate your learning curve.
When you only seek free knowledge, you may find information of dubious quality and spend much more time and effort to find out what actually works.
Depending on how much your time is worth to you, investing money in knowledge can be much more advantageous.
Time is not money. Money is time
The best way to clarify the difference between time and money is in this sentence:
“There is a myth that time is money. In fact, time is much more precious than money. It is a non-renewable resource. Once it’s spent, and if you spend it poorly, it’s gone forever.” ~ Neil Fiore
So learn to value your time properly.
Financial freedom means having free time to devote to what really matters in your life.
Set this goal for your life and don’t stop pursuing it until you achieve it.