| Most people have only two valuable assets - their brain and their time While I don't disagree I do think the statement itself is amusing for its inherent assumptions: that we can usefully generalize about all people, that it is logically coherant for strangers or society at large to attempt to value the activity of individuals, and that actions should be directed towards some commonly agreed upon goal. There are many cultures and philosophies out there that would reject such assumptions. Effort in education and experiences can make all of your future time more valuable. It depends how you choose to value your future time. Would you value it now, guessing at what you want in the future? Would you value it in the future, admitting that you may be totally ignorant of or worse - outright incorrect - about your future wants and needs, here and now? If you go the defacto route of economic rationalism, then you'd usually be right (ie. 'education leads to more income' is still true in many circumstances, but more weakly of late) though one could draw in to question the associated costs in non-economically rationalizable experience, skill and thought, such as art and philosophy. If you just relax about decisions in life, adding effort where curiosity deigns to dangle its carrot, would you be any worse off? |