Owning Time: A Radical Temporalist Approach

Time is the one currency you can never earn back. Money, status, even achievements are replaceable. Minutes are not. The question isn’t how to fill your hours—it’s how to live them fully.

Increase Vitality: Protect your sleep. Walk until your nervous system unclenches. Move your body in ways that feel real. Eat food that sharpens rather than dulls. Breathe in sunlight, not screens. Laugh, stretch, sweat. Vitality is your availability for life.

Deepen Connection: Be present with the people who matter. Sit with your partner without distractions. Ask your kids questions and truly listen. Share small adventures. Touch. Tell honest stories. Admit uncertainty. Connection grows where performance fades.

Sharpen Attention: Single-task. Read slowly. Walk without headphones. Memorize something small. Play music without distraction. Notice sensory details around you. Attention is a blade—use it, don’t dull it with multitasking.

Feel Alive Without Performance: Write without publishing. Move without tracking. Explore without documenting. Dance with your kids. Learn without mastery. Say no to impress, yes to live. Let moments exist without proof.

The point isn’t heroics. It’s presence. Aliveness. Ownership. Most people spend their days becoming someone. Radical temporalists spend theirs being here.

Why Working Less Might Actually Be the Smarter Life Strategy

Most Americans think the default life plan is: get a full-time job, grind 40+ hours a week, maybe start a side hustle, hope for retirement someday. But here’s the brutal reality: time is the only resource you can’t get back.

Let’s look at the numbers:

• Average employee (all types): ~34.5 hours/week

• Full-time workers (official stats): ~40–41 hours/week

• Full-time salaried workers (self-reported): ~42–45 hours/week

• Entrepreneurs and small business owners: often 45–55+ hours/week, early-stage founders sometimes 60+

Add commuting, and even a “normal” job can consume 40–45 hours of your week. That’s 2,000–2,600 hours a year you’ll never get back.

Here’s the catch: more hours usually don’t buy you more happiness. Anxiety, stress, and burnout rise with unpredictable schedules, long hours, and high pressure, no matter your title. Hourly workers with low control report higher stress than salaried workers in secure, flexible roles—but long hours alone also take a mental toll for professionals.

So what’s the alternative?

Cut your expenses. Live closer to subsistence. Work part-time.

If you can comfortably live on less, you can keep your workweek around the average 34–35 hours. That buys back 5–15 hours per week compared to the “full-time reality” track. Over a year, that’s hundreds of hours of reclaimed life—time to walk, read, play music, or just be present with the people who matter.

Yes, it requires trade-offs: smaller margins, cultural friction, and confronting your own identity around success. But if your priority is time ownership and presence, this is the rare strategy that actually aligns with your values.

Instead of trading life for capital, trade some capital for life. It’s simpler, quieter, and for anyone willing to make it work, vastly underrated.