Store of value?
Since humans started making tools we have been storing value, what is a tool other than a way of transferring effort and energy from one moment in time to another, the time taken to make an fishing net is returned in the time saved in fishing. We make the decision to invest energy upfront to save greater effort later, in contrast it is the definition of laziness to make more work for yourself later by doing nothing now, I have no problem with intelligent laziness or efficiency as some people like to call it, it is finding the simplest way to achieve your wants, including rest, especially as rest is one of the most important aspects of peak performance, it needs to be taken as serious as your deliberate practise. Rest is the storage part of the value we build from short burst of intense effort, and the lessons from peak performance can be applied to the whole of our lives, as surely the most important performance is our lives, and it is only by storing energy and value that we are able to be our best.
There is certainily a need for steady effort over time, but that is not to say it should be the same effort all the time, there is long term balance but not from one moment to the next. There is diminishing returns on anything we do, it could be practising the ukulele, a new language, tennis, the most benefit we get is from the first hour, normally the first twenty minutes, the secret is to keep on coming back after a rest, change of pace, or a good night sleep. The trick is to have the discipline and enthusiasm to do it every day, that is where rest is so important, it gives us the energy to reapply ourselves to our program of improvement, it is this momentum that gets us places, the daily routine of short intense practise is the only doorway to competency and then mastery. That is why we start with such short sessions, stamina can only be built once there is skill to practise, we have to be confident in what we are doing before we can repeat it.
What this demonstrates is that the best way to achieve things is not with constant effort but with peak effort for short amount of time followed by long periods of rest to be able to achieve intensity for those short moments. It reflects our nature as hunters, lions sleep for twenty hours a day, we do so for eight hours if we were designed for constant grazing we would only need a few naps like herd animals, we rely on peak performance to get things done, and yet our modern economic system want us to do simple grazing activities for eight hours workdays, it requires steady units of productions. There is a classic economic model of Crusoe and friend Friday on a deserted island, it reduces our world to it's simplest form so that we can see what happens depending upon the behaviour of the actors in this world, and this is a very simple world where there are two people and fish to catch. It takes fours hours to catch one fish by hand and one hour to catch it with a net, and you need three fish to have enough to eat.
It should be obvious if Crusoe takes two hours to make a net that catches three fish. it is worth the effort for Crusoe to make the net, he could make a net and catch three fish in five hours in total. It becomes interesting if friend Friday can not make a net or it take him twice as long, it would save everyone time if Crusoe makes two nets and Friday does all the fishing, Crusoe only works for four hours and Friday ends up working for six hours but everyone saves times, as without the nets it would take twelve hours for Friday to catch the same number of fish. You might have spotted that the more skilled person ends up working for less time, and it might seem unfair, but this is economics we are only motivated by maximising our returns (in real life there are relationship benefits in fairness). However it also represents what happens in reality we pay people differently depending on their level of skill or rarity, and what the model demonstrates is that you want to be the skilled person in this situation, that the value of money is really in buying time or reducing the time to get the same amount of goods.
That is what we can apply to real life it does not matter how much money you have, only what you can get for it, inflations hurts us because we end up with less than we could have got yesterday, that is why we want ways to store value, just as Crusoe did with building a tool that provided value or at a deeper level the thing of greatest value is the ability to make tools in the first place. Look around your life and try to assess how much value you have stored in the things you own, a garden of lettuce has value, you can eat it, a laptop can entertain you or can be a tool of your trade, hair clippers saves you the cost of a haircut. One of the most traditional stores is your homes (once you have paid it off), it has value because you need it, you need a place to sleep, cook and keep warm, and a home is the cheapest way to get it, compared to hotels, eating out and spending your evening in the pub, otherwise no one would pay so much to buy a home, however it worth asking what you really need and then finding what matches those requirements. A lot of us are paying for extra bedrooms, space and even storage for things that we do not even use, it can be a substantial amount of waste.
When you do the calculations it can show you the dollar worth of minimalism, when you compare what you are paying out now and what you would save by having less of things, the idea of a storage unit is pure wasted resources that you could be spending on something better. It can be dangerous to think that all those things you are storing actually have value because you spent money on them, that is confusing cost with value, the value is the benefit to you and only you, it means that something actually have a value far higher than what they cost you. An air fryer might cost a hundred dollars but if it saves you two dollars a week in electricity, it is worth a hundred dollars a year for five years, but if you never use it, you have wasted a hundred dollars, it is personal value that matters, and it does not matter how much stuff you have only if you use it and it has value. Minimalism makes you think about the value stuff has both in terms of cost but space as well, personally as long as I use it and it has a home I do not count how many things I have, though now I do put a value on empty space that it uses up as space does make me feel better.
However the point of storing value is to use it later, for it to have purpose and be spent, that means that you have to be sure of what you want, and the answer to that is in focusing on what you actually do, how do you spend your day, what things give you joy and what would a perfect day look like for you. I am fortunate that the things that I love, reading, writing, learning, meditation, walking, are very affordable, and indeed mostly free, which meant that I was able to build assets that pay an income that covers my living cost, and having the space and time to do what I love is wonderful thing, and I hope if you spreadsheet what your perfect normal life would look like, it would look to be good value too, and could even be affordable if you stopped spending money on things that are of less value than your freedom. The amount of money spent on work related activities or stress releasing fun because of your work, on things to impress your friends or that you deserve for your hard work, or even because you have some money left in your account at the end of the month and why not?
Which is logical if you think the only purpose of money is to be spent on things of current interest, it is only when you know that you have the option to buy your freedom to do as you wish, just like Crusoe on his island, you invest to reduce your work load, to make thing easier and more comfortable. I hope it is easy to see that what you would be buying is your time, you could just fish for twelve hours and eat, the only purpose of the net is to make your live easier so that you make a fish net for two hours and then fish for three fish, there is no point in getting six unless you can store the spare three and save them for later or a day off. Of course most of us are not satisfied with just three fish, but there has to be enough fish in the world for you to be happy and just rest on your paradise island. That is the trap of our modern world, there are more fish than we know what to do with, and if we are not getting more fish we feel like we are failing, without realising that we already have enough, so store your value, turn it into assets that produce income or save you money, and enjoy your fish!
