When’s the last time you specifically blocked off an hour for something that was just yours? Not for work or your kids or for that favor for your buddy. Just for something for you, for something you actually care about.
I hate to tell you this but if you had to stop and think about it, that’s your answer. You’re already paying the time tax. And probably have been for decades. It’s the quietest tax in this whole series but it might also be the biggest.
Here’s how it goes. You say yes because saying no feels selfish and you’re afraid people will think you are. You stay late because leaving feels like you’re not doing your job right. You give up your Saturday because the guy who asked needed it and you’re the reliable friend. None of it ever feels like you’re making a choice. It just feels like being a good person. And that’s a pretty big social cost to pay if you don’t give your time to these things.
For a few years after I hit bottom, I was a live-in caregiver. If you’ve ever done any sort of live-in job, you know that’s not a job you clock out of. You live in the same place as the need. I moved into the basement of one patient’s house. And then, about a year later, after I left that patient, I ended up moving in with another patient with whom I’d become great friends with by then. His name was Scott, and when it started, he was the best friend I’d had in years. Living there made sense. I was around anyway, so why not.
Then, slowly, things started to change. The friendship turned into an obligation I resented because I couldn’t ever be “off duty”. I was on call for somebody else’s life around the clock, and my own life just kind of sat there. Not doing much of anything. I told myself I was being useful but in reality I was just handing every hour I had to someone else and calling it loyalty. I was proud to be in the service of others.
You know what the shitty part was though when I finally realized it? All that time I was the most reliable guy in every house I lived in, I was the least reliable guy in my own life. Exercise? No time. Ambitions? No time. Relationships? No time.
That’s how the time tax shows up. Not in one big bill but in a thousand small yeses that each felt like nothing.
It ran on a simple belief: Be available and people will value you. Give your time freely and it comes back around. My worth comes from how much I sacrifice. And so I ended up treating my time like it was the cheapest thing I owned. Like there’d always be more.
But yeah…there isn’t. And that’s the truly scary part about this tax.
Of all the resources we spend in this world, time is the only thing you can’t earn back. You can make more money. You can rebuild a reputation. You can start a whole new career at 45 (trust me, I’d know). But you can’t get back a single hour you gave to something that didn’t matter because saying no felt rude.
Now look at the guys who actually do things. The ones whose work you admire and try to imitate. Watch how they treat their time. They guard the shit out of it. They don’t do it in a cruel way but they’re just not sorry about it. They’ll tell you no and not spend three days feeling like shit over it. They decided their own priorities were worth defending, and they defend them.
That feels almost rude to guys like us, because we got taught the opposite. We got taught that the considerate thing is to always be available. To always be willing to make room for someone else’s needs. But treating your own time like it’s worth less than everyone else’s was never humility. It’s just a habit with a price you don’t see until too many years are already gone.
Sadly, most guys never realize it. They stay busy and reliable right to the end, wondering where it all went. Some notice it and get bitter and start feeling like people are just out to use them but that ends up being just a new way to keep doing nothing. Some people, though, notice it and do the uncomfortable thing. They start saying no. Out loud. To real people.
And they find out the world doesn’t end. It just rearranges around the guy who finally decided his time was his.
If this series is making sense for you, go back and read the one that started the whole series.
Nice Guy Syndrome in Midlife: The Tax Nobody Warned You About
So here’s the thing I want you to think about this week. Your time is either managed by your priorities or it’s managed by everyone else’s. It doesn’t stay neutral. It never did. Right now, today, somebody’s calendar is running your week. The only question is whose because every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else. Or someone else. Yourself.
Hit reply and tell me the block of time you’re taking back this week. I read them all.