Episode 29: You Pay Too Much for Your Whistle

[00:00:00] Seth: I found myself reading an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin recently. Now, I love biographies, especially autobiographies. It makes me feel like I've had an opportunity and A small way to live another person's life. And in a metaphorical way, I aspire to be able to say someday that I've lived a thousand lives.

There was a lot to glean from this biography, but at the end of it, they included this letter that he wrote several years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. And I felt it was worth sharing. So I'm going to abridge a few parts, but otherwise I'm going to read it word for word. So brace yourself for some revolutionary era.

Language, but I think it's worth it. If you want to read this letter in its entirety, it's very easy to find online and it's called The Whistle and it's by Benjamin Franklin. So here goes. When I was a child of seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children and being charmed with the sound of a whistle.

That I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much very pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth, put me in a mind of what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation.

And the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind, so that, often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don't give too much for the whistle, and I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.

When I saw one fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, Neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays indeed, said I, too much for his whistle. If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, All the pleasure of doing good to others, All the esteem of his fellow citizens, And the joys of benevolent friendship, For the sake of accumulating wealth, poor man, said I.

You pay too much for your whistle. When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensation, and ruining his health in their pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure. You give too much for your whistle.

If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts and ends his career in a debtor's prison, alas, say I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle. When I see a beautiful, sweet tempered girl married to an ill natured brute of a husband, and What a pity, say I, that she should pay so much for a whistle.

In short, I conceive that a great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles. Yet, I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the whistle.

And that's the end of it. So the question I have is, what in our lives do we overvalue? Is it our leisure? Is it image? Is it power? Is it food? Or is it novel experiences? There's an elusive balance in life that seems hard to attain. You want to enjoy life, yet you don't want to pay too much for it. If I had to summarize this, I'd say the essence of it is that our time and attention is an investment.

The hidden cost of every choice we make is more than we can imagine, so are some of our choices costing us more than we think? If the ultimate currency of life is time, then the real question to consider is, how are we spending the time we have? Are we choosing to spend our time streaming TV shows? What are we getting back for the time we spend angry at someone else?

What are we getting back for the time spent relaxing? Or maybe, more appropriately, Are we seeing the effect of diminishing returns when, when we invest so heavily in something like relaxing? What do we get back for the time spent earning money to pay for your new car or to pay for your expensive house?

What's the real cost of these things? In order to know if we're wasting that currency, we need to know what we want out of life. If you want nothing out of life, then you don't have to think about how you're spending your attention at all. But if you are a normal person and hope to get something out of life, it's going to take some thought.

If you want to be rich, what things are you devoted to that are keeping you from getting rich? If you want a balanced life with a family and lots of good memories, then maybe you would benefit from spending less time watching other people's families on Facebook and spending more with the one that you have.

If you want to make some impact on the world, maybe to start, you need to shift your attention and time into figuring out what impact you have the capacity to make. And after that, you need to budget your time and attention to get those things done. Nobody wants exactly the same thing out of life, so it's hard to give advice that's going to apply to everyone, but I know that we each have a vision.

Of what things could be like. And I know from first hand experience, it's not always easy to break habits, especially when life is already spreading us thin. But there's almost always a point of leverage that will get us the most bang for our buck. So I just want to share with you a story. For, for me, I don't know how long ago this was, but I remember coming home from work exhausted every day.

I worked a nine to five, but I had like an hour commute there and an hour commute back and, and you know, I'd stay past five a lot of times. So a lot of times I wouldn't, I wouldn't even get back until like seven o'clock or sometimes eight, sometimes nine, you know, just typical corporate junk. You're just gone all the time.

So I get home so exhausted and the little time I had. I would use to eat dinner, play with my kids for a little bit, and then I'd help put them to bed. And after my kids were in bed, I had two blessed hours between when they went to bed and when I had to go to bed. So I'd spend that time watching stupid TV shows with my wife at the time.

And one day I realized that those two hours were basically all I had if I ever wanted to do something beyond my daily grind. I didn't have a vision of what I wanted to do, but I knew I needed to create time to do something. So, to the best of my ability, I swore off the TV. And you know, a funny thing happens when you remove easy entertainment off of your option list.

Whether it's mindless scrolling or TV. You'll start doing things. You become less of a consumer and more of a creator. So that was my leverage point that I needed to work on and it still took years before I really found things that I loved and Developed kind of a clearer vision of what I wanted to do with my life But I don't think it would have come at all without creating some regular time in my day where I It was even possible for me to do things.

So I would ask you, what do you want to happen in your life? And I'd follow that up with another question, which is, what are you spending your time on now that's keeping you from getting there?