Tip 3: Time is NOT money!

Yes, I've been MIA again. My bad. Here's the reason why though:

Couldn't just write about furthering one's education and not put truth to power right? What I look like? Sorry, not sorry, I am a hip hop head, hence the references to popular hip hop phrases.

Now to the topic at hand: not so long ago I was listening to Tim Robbins on YouTube as he spoke about his latest book. Here is what he said: "The reason why you are experiencing money problems is because you're in a bad financial transaction. You may be wondering: how can I be in a bad financial transaction? I have nothing to do with the business market. Well, let me tell you this: each time you exchange time for money, you are in fact in a bad financial transaction."

Let me tie this in with the above picture and the story behind it: from april 2006 to may 2014 I worked part time as a cashier. During this whole period I also attended college with the exception of dropping out for one year but later on getting back on track. And now I am going to do something that is considered a faux pas in Belgian culture and divulge information about my paycheck: during this whole time I earned no more than €1200.00/month. Yes, that's what I earned for nearly a decade. No more, no less. We are all too familiar with the saying that time is money, but that is absolutely false. And it is something that we all too often realize when it's already too late. Something the Christian author Michelle McKinney Hammond said during one of her talks in a West-African country truly resonated with me: money comes and goes. Time however, is relentless: once it is gone, it is gone forever. For nearly a decade I sacrificed money in order to gain time to obtain a M.A. in African Studies. This sounds dandy in written format, but the reality of it is far from picture perfect: this may mean more domestic travel rather than international travels, less eating out with friends and more staying indoors to finish a paper and saying 'no' often to invitations from family members to the point of nuisance. 

Just to give another example to further illustrate this point: while I worked as a cashier we often had to work overtime. And we had the choice of whether we wanted that overtime to be paid out or saved as extra time to take off from work. There were times when I was very short on money and had to opt for the former, but overall, I always went for the latter. In 2011 I even went as far as to take out 9 months of leave of absence to attend graduate school. I had saved up some money to cover for my expenses but certainly not enough for the entire 9 months. That's when the small stipend I was receiving from the government came in handy: it's literally called an Encouragement Stipend and it's designed to stimulate people to further their education. What this conveys to me is that the Belgian government finds it more important for you to be able to take care of yourself in the long run, than for them to have to subsidize you for the rest of your life. Something that is a tangible problem in this country. 

We do not all have the same living situations and this is something I fully acknowledged when I first started writing these educational series precisely a year ago. However, we can all detect ways in our lives where it would be an advantage for us to choose time over money. I believe education and self-improvement are one area where this certainly pays off in the long run (pun intended).