How much would you pay for one more hour in your day. Hint: There is a correct answer, and most Americans got it wrong.
A new survey says that more than half (58%) of Americans are willing to pay cash in exchange for one more hour in their day, and that the average amount that these people are willing to pay for that extra hour is $2,725.
From the TIME piece:
The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.
Am I the only sane person left in this world?
Only 58% of people would pay money to add an hour to their day? What the hell are the other 42% thinking? Do they have any idea how valuable an extra hour a day could be?
Sorry. Stupid question. Clearly they do not.
Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. More valuable than oil or diamonds or fame or even cold, hard cash. Time is a tragically finite resource for which there will never be any replacement.
Time is the great equalizer. We all have 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. If you can get an extra hour on everyone else, you would be an idiot not to pay for it.
If given the opportunity to purchase anything in this world, you should always purchase time first, and then time again and again and again.
Yet 42% of Americans would apparently not spend even a single dollar for an extra hour a day.
Clearly traumatic brain injury is a more serious problem than I ever imagined.
Next, let’s look at the amount that the average American would be willing to spend for an extra hour a day: $2725.
Have these people also been hit in the head by large objects?
An extra hour a day for the rest of you life isn’t worth the price of a motorcycle? Season tickets to your favorite baseball team? One-fifth of the average kitchen remodel in America?
I would pay as much as I possibly could for an extra hour a day. I would take out a second mortgage on my home for an extra hour in my day. I would forfeit a year’s salary for an extra hour every day. I would have another child with my wife just so I could trade my third-born child for an extra hour in my day.
An extra hour a day amounts to an extra 15 days a year. That’s an additional year of life every 25 years.
An additional year of life is worth less than $2,700?
People are insane. Stupid and insane.
Lastly, let’s look at the rant of TIME writer Melissa Locker again:
The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.
Sad? Has Locker been struck in the head by a ballpein hammer, too? Does she not understand the value of an extra hour a day for the rest of your life?
Sorry. Stupid question again. Clearly she does not.
The desire for an extra hour in the day is not sad. It’s not indicative of an out-of-whack work-life balance. Desiring an extra hour every day (and being willing to pay for it) is common sense. It’s logic. It’s an understanding of time on an economic level. A clear-eyed view on how short and precious life is and how valuable one hour a day, seven hours a week, and 365 additional hours every year would be.
Sad to be willing to pay for an extra hour every day? I don’t think so.
What’s truly sad it how people don’t realize how fragile and tenuous our lives really are. How fleeting our days on this planet will prove to be. How much they will they will have wished for those extra hours when facing the specter of death.
An extra hour every day would be the greatest opportunity imaginable. And the greatest bargain of all time at $2,7o0.