Nov. 7, 2005. Oh yeah, that's today's date. I am a senior. We're approaching the end of our first semester at Boston College this year. Wow. Take that in. Some of my Heights brethren are noticing that this journalistic project is waning. Time has been on my mind lately not just in a senior year moment, but in the economical sense. There are 168 hours a week. How we spend them is up to us. These 168 hours are the same 168 hours that people like George W. Bush, Sen. Rick Santorum, and Pope Benedict XVI get to enjoy. What we do with it us up to us.
For example, why do people pay to have their lawns cut? Why is it that every major executive has a personal assistant? It really is an economical decision. I know we are not high power executives at this point in our lives, but there is a serious issue here. I have acquaintances that do not do their own laundry anymore. Is this a fit of unabashed laziness? Maybe, but one of these acquaintances will drop his laundry off and then drive over to the library to work on his law school applications. I would argue that in the latter case the gentleman is making the best use of his time. You ever run into people who cannot find enough time in a given week to do everything? Maybe you all know a few. Ah, actually probably many of your collegiate friends would fall into this category. Getting stuff done is tough when you sleep until 3 p.m. everyday. There are some rare situations where a person is really making the most optimal use of his time. These are few and far between. The most successful people in the world are often those who spend the least amount of time asleep as possible, because they know that their time is worth too much to them to be asleep for longer than the minimum necessary time.
Here's another interesting story. Let's say you log your mileage on your car, which you use for both business and personal use. Why would anyone do this? Say you are a self-employed professional, perhaps an accountant who moonlights as an accounting professor. You can deduct the portion of your mileage each year used for business purposes to get a tax deduction for a great tax savings. I have a friend who does this. I did some mathematics on the cumulative time spent logging miles on his car. He says he's been doing it for 20 years. If you figure he spends at least three minutes entering his mileage every day for 20 years, he will have spent 364 hours logging miles in 20 years. As mentioned earlier, there are 168 hours in a week. So that translates out to be the equivalent of slightly over two weeks spent logging mileage on his car. Another example. Many people at BC spend time at the Plex in a given week. If you spend an hour and a half at the Plex for six of the seven days for 40 out of the 52 weeks of the year, you also will have spent slightly more than two weeks getting huge.
It's all about economy. There is a scarcity of resources in the world. In each of our lives, there is a scarcity of time. If we all were to live to be 80 years old, we have 700,800 hours to live. How scary is that? Seniors, how are we going to spend the hours we have left here at BC? How do we plan on spending those hours that we have left to live? Hopefully we'll all live past 80. Nobody should forget something like168 hours. Some people are looking for the highest financial profit in their 168 hours. Some are looking for profound relationships. I'd like a little of both. I'll see you all 168 hours from now.
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