Our brains are wired to constantly look for the upsides and downsides. As a specialist doctor, i'm fortunate enough to be at a point in my career where I could be paid up to £65 ($88) an hour to do additional shifts at the eye hospital.
Doing the maths, this means that the 30 hours i've committed to shipping 30 atomic essays for 30 days will essentially cost me over ~£2000 ($2700k).
How can I be so excited about losing this much money?
£2000 is a lot of money for me right now.
If you're spending hours on your craft or make more in your day job - it could be even more for you. It's not that I dislike my work as an eye doctor. In fact, I struggle to think of more rewarding work than applying my knowledge and surgical skills to restoring people's sight.
But life isn't transactional and we're not one-dimensional. I've been curious about going deep into writing for a long time, and that was enough for me.Rather than dwell on the money i'm not making, these opportunity costs remind of the very real value of my time.
Just as price-tags on objects and experiences can signal how much thought and sweat went into making it, i'm choosing to place a price-tag on my time to remind me of just how important this is to me.
My peers and even my rational self may not understand it right now, but I know my future self will look back on these sacred hours i've carved out spent reflecting, crafting, making as some of my most cherished moments.
So would my 65 year old self pay $2000 for these hours spent growing?
I bet he would.