I don’t know if it is a function of age, motherhood, or both, but I too have reached the tipping point. I want nothing more than a few more minutes to hear my daughter laugh, to savor a glass of wine, to read a good book. And for those minutes I pay dearly.
I live close to work—where rents are high—to keep my commute short. I eat out too much, refusing to spend the few moments I have before the baby’s bedtime cooking. And most importantly, I’ve turned down promotions and exciting assignments to keep my short work hours.
Recently I was recruited by another company. I asked if he could promise me the five weeks vacation and short workweek I’ve earned over the years.
“Five weeks?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Hmmmm,” was the answer.
He also couldn’t offer me the thirty-five hour workweek I now enjoy, and even a raise couldn’t make me consider working those extra ten hours. All I could think was that ten hours is almost an entire waking day for the baby. No amount of money would make me give that up right now.
So I guess I’ve reached that point—for me it came when wrinkles worried me more than pimples—when time doesn’t seem like the bottomless well it once did; when I realized that the one thing I can’t buy is another day.
No, for me, time isn’t money. It costs too much.
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