Money can buy you time, but will it earn you a lasting legacy?

 

Time is money. Money can buy things, but can money buy time too? In theory, yes, but in reality, maybe it’s a bit more complicated.

However, a dear friend is doing exactly that. He’s at the top of his hard-to-enter, highly responsible and very admired profession. Not only is he very good at it, he trains and even certifies others at it, too.

Now in his 50s, with kids all grown up and independent and doing well, he could have easily, as they say, be “making hay while the sun shines” with his much sought-after skills.

But he isn’t. He’s negotiated with his employer to work and be paid as a part-timer, and spends the rest of the time travelling to savour the world, seeing them again with a fresh set of eyes, which must be a most delicious experience indeed.

In effect, he’s “buying time” from his employer.

I’m in a somewhat similar position. I called time out on my “cari makan”, or career, pretty much on my own terms, conscious about not overstaying my welcome. It turned out my employers weren’t quite ready to kick me out yet – perhaps they weren’t as smart as I thought they were – but I was ready to leave.

So I left. It would be a lie to say my heart was singing and rainbows were in the skies when I did that. There was some trepidation as I questioned whether I made the right decision, and there were worries whether some of my calculations, or the world itself, would turn bad in a big nasty surprise.

Of course, as things would have it, I spent the first few years of my retirement rather comfortably locked down at home due to the pandemic. It did suck somewhat, but it sucked worse for many others, so you won’t hear me complain.

Years ago, I heard something that became a mantra for me – that it’s a very sad thing to die when you’re at your richest. But as true as that sounds, you obviously can’t just hope or assume your own demise will happen on the very day when your bank account is empty.

But we can still make certain other assumptions, chief among which is that we will not live forever, and that, whatever we have in life, we can’t take it with us – but we can get there after having used somebody else’s! That’s how some people live as if there’s no tomorrow; when tomorrow does come, they leave the bills for somebody else to pay.

Their descendants and beneficiaries will be very unhappy, their creditors very mad, and enough people have certainly done that to keep probate lawyers and tabloid headline writers employed, but I wouldn’t recommend that for anybody, especially my debtors.

Even if you finally managed to be broke on the exact day you die, you still want to be known for leaving something else behind, apart from just settled bills and IOUs. You want to leave behind a lasting legacy, something many of us are obsessed with, albeit not openly to others, and often not even to ourselves.

There’s a Malay saying that a tiger dies leaving behind its stripes, while humans die leaving behind their reputation, meaning their legacy, whether good or bad.

Legacies matter. By the time you’re an adult, you’ve lived long enough to have interacted with, and hence had an impact on, many around you. You can see your legacy in real time in the people whose lives you’ve touched, for good or bad.

In your retirement, while you still worry about money, it’s even more important to think about whether you’ve left behind enough of a positive legacy for others to remember you by.

There’s a great example of a Malaysian coming to the end of a long and storied life whose name I won’t mention (…Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) who seems to be obsessed about the legacy he’ll leave behind, apart from the usual things he’s always obsessed with, such as settling scores and stirring the pot.

On Mahathir, I’m in the school of thought that believes Tun, in the twilight of his life, worries that his legacy may have gone awry; all the noise and drama is merely him trying to make things “right” for himself, or at least to make things wrong for his enemies, so as to secure his desired legacy

Don’t be like Tun Dr Mahathir, all smarts and no wisdom, all calculations and no self-awareness. But I’m perhaps being too hard on Tun, and also for another set of people – those who’re struggling daily to just put food on the table to even think about legacies.

I grew up seeing my parents in that position. But even in their darkest moments, the thought of leaving behind their own legacy – in their case well brought up children – drove them on. This single-minded determination dulled the constant pain of their hard life, making it more bearable.

Perhaps this desire to leave behind a legacy was their opiate that allowed them to endure their lives’ challenges. If that is so, long may this “drug” remain legal and freely available to all and sundry.

So, buying time, by forgoing monetary rewards in order to enjoy your own life at your own discretion, is a sign that perhaps you’ve got your internal compass properly calibrated. You won’t be at your richest when you die, but very likely you’ll be the ones with the least regrets and the best legacy.

You won’t be sad when you go, but many others will be – those in debt to your good deeds, which to them were probably worth more than money. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.