![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/eric-kim-street-photography-suits-sydney-800x530.jpg?resize=800%2C530\")
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The three most valuable things we have in life are time, attention, and money.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With time<\/strong>, we never gain more of it. As time goes on, we slowly die. Sooner or later we will all (eventually) die. And no matter how rich we are, we can never buy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more\u00e2\u20ac\u009d time to add to our lives (although we can pay people to save us time).<\/p>\n With attention<\/strong>, once we lose it, it takes a long time for us to regain it. The internet is an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153attention economy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d catchy titles, pop-ups, messages that always try to get our attention. Advertising is all about getting your attention, and stoking you with desire. And also with attention, apparently once you lose attention and focus, it takes you around 30 minutes to regain it. We only are given so much attention in the day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we decide what to give attention to (and what not<\/em> to give attention to).<\/p>\n With energy<\/strong>, we start the day with a 100% smartphone battery charge. As the day goes on, as we work, interact with others, move, etc \u00e2\u20ac\u201d our battery slowly drains. At the end of the day we are near 0%. We decide what to do during our days, and how to conserve our energy.<\/p>\n Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s do a thought experiment: If you made $5,000 a month ($60,000 a year) in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passive income\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (meaning, you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to work for this money, it just magically appeared in your bank account every month) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d what would you do with your time, attention, and energy?<\/p>\n What is the one main thing you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to focus on? Devote your life to? Who are the individuals that you would want to spend your time, attention, and energy with?<\/p>\n Better yet\u00e2\u20ac\u201d what would you decide not<\/em> to do with your time, attention, and energy? What are the superfluous things you would cut from your life? What activities would you stop doing?<\/p>\n What would you do with your newfound freedom? Would you sit passively on the couch, and just consume media? Or would you be more active\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and focus more on creation, self-exploration, and helping others?<\/p>\n For me, my main passion in life is to teach and empower others. I love doing this by blogging, by making videos, by teaching workshops, and by encouraging friends and family.<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve actually found out a while ago that my main passion in life isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t photography. Rather, I see photography as a tool to better connect with others, and also for me to connect with myself. Photography helps me step outside of my comfort zone, approach people I normally wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, and also help me find more gratitude in life.<\/p>\n So you know the imaginary scenario where you no longer have to worry about money anymore? That is currently my situation in Vietnam. I know once I move back to the states, I will start having to worry about money again (cost of living in Bay Area\/Berkeley is much higher than Hanoi). But what if I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t?<\/p>\n An ideal day for me in Hanoi includes the following:<\/p>\n None of this stuff really requires a lot of money. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure why I always stress out about money. This lifestyle doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even cost much when I live back in the states.<\/p>\n How much money do I need? And what do I need it for?<\/p>\n Sure, I might want to buy a house or buy investment properties or whatever to have a lifelong source of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passive income.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But honestly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not too worried about money. I know that as long as I work hard, build value for others, encourage and motivate others, teach, and help my fellow humankind\u00e2\u20ac\u201d my basic needs will be met. I know that instead, I should devote all of my psychic energy to helping others\u00e2\u20ac\u201d instead of thinking how I can add more security, comfort, and pleasure to my own life.<\/p>\n Many of us live paycheck to paycheck. Of course we still need to work to pay the bills, and do other unpleasant things in life (like doing taxes, and visit in-laws we might not like).<\/p>\n However, there is still a lot in life we can control \u00e2\u20ac\u201d like what to do with our free time, with our energy, and attention (at least before\/after work, to some extent our lunch breaks, and on the weekends).<\/p>\n One of the best ways for decision making (learned this from Derek Sivers) is that when you want to know what to do (and what not to do) ask yourself the question:<\/p>\n \n Is this decision a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchell f*cking yeah, or no?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Avoid things that you only have a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmild\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 enthusiasm\/passion for in life. This will help you direct yourself to knowing what you really want to (and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to do).<\/p>\n For me, my hell f*cking yes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s include the following:<\/p>\n Things that I know that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like to do, or waste time, attention, energy on:<\/p>\n I want to rid myself of all these negative emotions, anxieties, and fears. And I try my best on a daily basis\u00e2\u20ac\u201d to liberate more of my psychic energy to helping others.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n So now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve shared some of my personal thoughts with you \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I want you to have the chance to answer the question.<\/p>\n What would you do if you no longer had to worry about money? What would you choose to focus your time, attention, and energy on?<\/p>\n Would you focus more on your photography? Focus more on your family? Focus more on making a contribution to the rest of society? What other forms of art could you pursue?<\/p>\n What would you spend less time on, less attention on, and less energy on? What negative emotions do you want to rid from yourself? What positive emotions do you want to focus on, and let enter into your life?<\/p>\n Always think and meditate on these questions. You only have one life to live\u00e2\u20ac\u201d why live according to the standards of others?<\/p>\n As Socrates once said:<\/p>\n \n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The life unexamined isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a life worth living.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Always, After dragging myself out of bed, having a (strong) Vietnamese coffee at home, and getting ready for a (very hot) day in Hanoi.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The three most valuable things we have in life are time, attention, and money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/eric-kim-street-photography-suits-sydney.jpg?fit=1000%2C663&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What if you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to worry about money?<\/h2>\n
My passion<\/h2>\n
My ideal lifestyle<\/h2>\n
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Hell f*cking yeah! (or no)<\/h2>\n
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\nEric<\/p>\n