You Will Never Succeed; Here's Why I Will

Time is finite — a mere fraction of a whole. The whole represents the whole of everything available to me, everything I can ever be worth as a human being.

My time is only worth what I can make with it. What I can make is only worth what others will pay for it. Thus, my whole life only has worth if I make every fraction worth as much as it can possibly be worth.

Now, when I speak of “worth,” I define it monetarily. It’s more complex than “time is money” of course. It varies by person. I am not currently a billionaire mogul, but I will never be one unless I start treating my time as valuable now. Regardless of the fact that, currently, an hour of my time barely earns me a single meal.

I cannot expect much more because I am still a mere cog in someone else’s machine.

So when I am "off the clock" for them, I am "on the clock" for myself. Brainstorming ideas, enhancing my skillset, and scheduling lunches and drinks with people who may one day be potential financiers.

I also make sure to read one autobiography a day. Speed read. The time would be too expensive otherwise. I absorb what traits and habits made the difference for them and write it down in my small black notebook. I make bullet points, for ease of understanding and clarity of thought. I cannot proceed with a suggestion efficiently unless I have already abridged the important-to-know facts.

Some would probably think: why not type these details up? Then I could use the Search feature. I don’t subscribe to that philosophy, it’s a shortcut. None of the 345 autobiographies I’ve read thus far have utilized such a shortcut. They’ve prioritized hard work and true absorption — hence, using a notebook, which offers inherent tactile and kinetic aid. Studies show that tangibly interacting with information is the most effective way to learn.

Best to avoid the illusion of space in the digital sphere — the belief you can just type and type and type (and expect to retain it). Sure, you can arguably just CTRL+FIND what you need later, but I’m not a gopher or curator collecting information here – I’m absorbing it.

There’s no work or effort required in digital note-taking, no actual comprehension or retention for the brain, just blind output with thoughtless reliance on the health and availability of some hard drive in the unknowable future. Idiotic.

My notebook, however, is not susceptible to viruses or power outages; it’s organized by section and summarized cleanly enough to make CTRL+F a completely unnecessary feature.

My own future autobiography will be so thorough and detailed in terms of the exact actions I take every day; it’ll be the only book that anyone needs to read — a true comprehensive step-by-step guide to success and increasing one’s value.

The main key is to track not only my time but the factored value of my time. I do this with two columns: one that represents the current market’s perceived value of my time, and a second column that represents my own calculated projected potential of it.

With every book read and each new connection, my projected value increases, even if the first column stays the same.

I rank connections by their current station in life and use their disclosed connections, knowledge, and financial standing to project a potential value for them too.

Then, I use an average between the two columns to summarize their overall value and potential.

This value helps me decide how to prioritize my schedule for those lunches and drinks. I always schedule two drinks simultaneously. This is how I protect my investment of time in case someone cancels. On the day of, I select the option (ie. person) with more value and first confirm with them. If they confirm, I then push the alternate to another week.

Tonight, I begrudgingly ask for confirmation from a woman whose overall value is a mere 35.

My first choice — a 225 — asked to push. 35 is my second. 35 is pretty in a plain way and has unrealistic hopes for herself. If she’s going to be successful in her pursuits (writer, actress, yawn), she will need more luck than anything else.

Even though my own hours each day are primarily spent as a cog, I’m an efficient cog. I wrap up my tasks timely and when my boss is slow to delegate my next task, I take my time back.

This added time gets noted in my black notebook as credited time, time for which had been previously accounted. It’s worth more because the cost isn’t my own, but is paid for by the incompetent boss to which I answer. It’s time that is efficiently doubled, as I’ll be paid for it, plus I will use it for myself much more wisely.

I’m in such a lucrative lull at work right now — grateful, of course, because I have some monthly upkeep, specifically all those tasks that don’t add much to my value, yet are undoubtedly necessary. “Staying above water” as they say, even if I’d much rather be swimming. Not merely kicking my feet and breathing.

Breathing is not movement forward, so I put as little time towards these tasks as possible, by ensuring that rent, utilities, and all other miscellaneous bills can get paid on the same day, even if the receivers have their own due date.

There is only one day a month that I must log into my bank account and view the dismal representation of my current perceived worth and that day is —

… Today.

Sorry, um. Something’s not right. Huh.

There is a deposit in my account, one I do not recognize... $20,000.

I’m ashamed to say I sit frozen for an excessive amount of time. Even with how well I utilize my time — well, it’s precisely because I utilize my time so well — I know I have not yet yielded such a return… Sure, my current overall rate for myself is 300 (what I lack in financial assets I make up for in knowledge and discipline), but…

To just. Get. A lot more... out of thin air…

Perhaps I simply forgot something! Or someone. Someone with a 4+ digit value who might have had reason to wire this money to me…? I look over my notebook. I backtrack through the prior lunches and drinks I had scheduled for myself.

There’s 73 — the useless but slightly amusing entrepreneur, 450 — the gangly jerk who just became an assistant for a major director, and 321 — that in-debt moron with family wealth …

No 20,000… None of my calculations had put anyone in even the 4-digit sphere, much less the 5-digit sphere…

I see no explanation of this sudden appearance.

Of course, I do my best to trace where it came from, ask my bank, but it was apparently from an account abroad that had since been closed.

I hear people say sometimes, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” so I tell my bank I was not expecting this money. I ask them to make sure it’s not some scheme to rob me. Granted, such a scheme would make little sense, since I only now have 5-digit assets.

Well … I’ve done what I can. I suppose I should note this. It’ll definitely change my value. I think of how to account for it.

Better yet, what will I do with it?

The $20,000 could be the seed money I need for my business, the first step towards having my own autobiography. Sure, merely finding $20,000 in one’s account wouldn’t be the sexiest start to the lay reader, but how I spend the money will be what matters. How I first double it and then triple it and then eventually turn it into a billion-dollar entity.

I just need a starting place. An expertise.

... Okay, not sure where to start on that front, but I just need to get a company started. We can figure out our mission statement as we grow! The strength of the company will rely on the people I hire, which — I consult my value markers in my notebook. I jump to the 450 first, obviously, but… he doesn’t feel like a potential business partner at all…

You know what, I don’t need a team yet; let’s not dilute my own value.

An email comes through. From the 35. She confirms tonight.

I shake my head. How can I waste my time on a 35 now? Now that I have a billion-dollar company to build?

I’m not even a 300 anymore, I’ll soon be a –

Right, I get to recalculate my value!

But… Huh.

Well, zero time went into this $20,000 increase. That rate of increase is therefore … undefined. So I can’t graph it. Or factor it in. I can’t even credit it — it’s zero. Well, divided by zero — infinity...?

No.

I’ve never removed data before, not even outliers, but I should just remove it from the equation and go on as I had planned. Except… Well, with money as my unit of measurement, how can I just ignore such a sum? I can’t.

I graph it anyways, just to try and understand it.

What am I supposed to do with that? How do I find meaning in this? How do I use this new data to determine my new value which will be the basis of determining how I should spend my time moving forward?

It’s not rational. It doesn’t … fit.

It messes with the whole equation.

Because zero units of time somehow equaled $20,000.

It undoes everything. It makes everything zero too.

My time is only worth what I can make with it. What I can make is only worth what others will pay for it.

… That’s what I thought.

I thought that would always mean money. Money made the best unit of measurement to calculate the worth of every interaction; it promised to set me on my path to uncontested success.

But now, an anomaly has occurred, and …

I can’t help but doubt my projections.

If money is fickle and changes and depends on market trends and inflation rates and general power or influence at a particular instant, then how can it be a reliable indicator of worth?

The psychology of people eludes me. Always has. I thought monetizing them would give me an anchor in understanding them. But money is no more stable… No less fickle.

$20,000 has just appeared and there’s more potential, but somehow also much less. It’s an "inflation" and it’s arbitrary. How had I never predicted this?

I thought I was putting solid time and effort into my value.

I thought my autobiography would be the best of any autobiography because it would give people the steps I actually utilized, how I actually cataloged everything down to the most seemingly insignificant second, but no …

I was wrong.

What I thought was seemingly insignificant was actually insignificant.

It’s all a house of cards. What’s the actual value? Of any of it?

I don’t know.

I …

This new page of my little black notebook has a new format. No more numbers, no more bullet points, just…

Just: my thoughts.

I write: “I used external factors to validate my time, my worth, and others’ worth.

“In the equation time = money, which is the more precious commodity? I thought I knew. I had assumed that money was just as finite as time. Just as predetermined. Only, more tangible. But it isn’t, on any front, and now, I need to find some other way to validate how I spend my time.

“How — I don’t yet know.

“Perhaps I can think about it over drinks tonight, with 35” — I cross that out.

Her name is Beth.