I was in Denver on a work trip last week and was fortunate enough to visit with a good friend of mine from high school; we spent like four hours chilling in his basement catching up. I described to him the fire that’s been raging inside of me to live life more and the recent realization that the window of opportunity to engage in physically strenuous activities (like do hard hikes in every national park in America) is smaller than we realize. For many this window to do physically strenuous activities ranges from age 15 to ~55. I’m trying to exploit the energy I possess right now and do active things I may not have the time nor ability to do later in life.

He beautifully articulated a concept I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about lately and couldn’t quite put into words.

What’s a triangle got to do with life?

It’s a model of the opportunity surface and associated tradeoffs present in most people’s life. On the points of this triangle are your Time, Energy, and Money. The idea is the surface morphs as we age. I believe it morphs as the priority of our highest values change. The age ranges used in the following charts are illustrious and not meant to cover all possible circumstances.

When we are young adults in this world, the triangle is skewed towards Time and Energy.

You have a lot of time and a lot of energy, but not necessarily a lot of money. It’s a prime time to develop communities, travel cheaply, cross physically strenuous dreams off your bucket list, learn new languages, work on developing depth in one of the various intelligence modalities, or try (and risk failure) in any pursuit that aligns with your highest values. If you try and fail at something, it’s no biggie. You’re still young, have the energy to pivot into something new, and probably don’t have any real monetary obligations (debt) to concern yourself with yet. As we age, we naturally begin to acquire more security and take on more external responsibilities. The triangle morphs.

If you’re already established in a career path by this point, some invest in ascending to become thought leaders in their field. Many choose to pursue things that establish roots to the community they live in – things like starting a business, buying a house, and/or starting a family. To support these activities, one will have to make sacrifices and dedicate a significant portion of their waking hours to working. Most use leverage to their advantage and take on debt to finance these opportunities. What you lose in time, you gain in security and money. You still have energy but now find yourself with less available time. One or two family vacations a year is typical. It’s complicated traveling with more people – you can’t just pack up and go the way you used to. Recovery from physically strenuous things takes a little longer; you’ll probably find yourself a step slower than when you were younger.

Familial and community obligations further erode the time you have for your own self actualization. It’s natural for highest values to shuffle a bit; and fulfilling the dreams of loved ones is a core value for many. It’s also natural for spending habits to shift during this time to investing to fulfill the dreams of others and enable retirement. During the later half of this period, significant changes typically occur – kids leave the house, many pay the mortgage off, maybe you sell the business you started when you were younger. Past a certain age, the triangle inevitably morphs again.

During this period of life, many get back to the things still remaining on their bucket list that they may not have had the time for during middle age. Retirement brings with it an abundance of time that is comparable to childhood and adolescence. The difference is (only if you’ve been wise with spending and investing habits!) you’ll most likely have a pool of money to work with that you didn’t have when you were young. What you gain in monetary security and spending opportunity, you lose in energy levels. Doing physically strenuous things at this age requires a lot more energy than when you were young. Traveling may be more stressful than it used to be. Worst case, you have health issues that prevent you from leaving the community you’ve established roots in. These realities are unavoidable the older you get.

Investing is typically only thought of through the lens of monetary growth: how can I increase my spending opportunities? What I’ve come to realize is that investing in yourself can also impact growth with respect to the amount of time and energy you buy yourself as you grow older. The triangle provides a fairly robust model to view the trade offs associated with investing decisions. One of my favorite quotes about models applies here:

“All models are wrong, some are useful.”

– George Box

For example, many entrepreneurs claim that increasing the time they acquire in middle age justifies the time and energy sacrifice made earlier in life. Many people derive immense value from being a parent and go through countless sleepless nights and money spent on their children to derive fulfillment from enabling the dreams of others. People who place high value on their health make it known through their actions that they are investing in increased energy levels later in life by sacrificing time and money in middle age.

I’ve come to appreciate more subtle ways of investing like going to therapy and working through unresolved trauma. These actions take time and cost money in the present day, yet I’ve found they bring more self awareness of one’s own highest values and reduce the amount of time spent chasing social idealisms (others highest values). Spending more time in the present moment and not being hung up on the past or anxious about the future is an invaluable treasure. Getting to know myself better is my number one highest value at the moment. It’s easier done when I feel healthy and whole so I also invest a lot of time and money into my health.

Traveling is a great way to get to know yourself better because it forces you out of your comfort zone – especially traveling solo. I work a highly abstract job as an AI Research Engineer and thus love being in nature in my free time. A profound realization I expanded upon in my last post is that there is limited time remaining for the natural world as we know it. Experiencing the majesty of the natural world (as it exists today) is a luxury future generations may not get the chance to experience. Being in nature allows me to tune in to the internal dialogue going on in my body which helps me learn more about myself. I also recognize that the time is now for me physically to go do these things. It won’t be guaranteed later in life.

All of us express our highest values through our actions. Just as no two people share exactly identical values systems, no two people are bound to have the same opportunity space. It’s natural for your opportunity space to morph as you age and thus natural for the things you connect over to morph as well. My dear friend in Denver and I used to connect over playing basketball, then it was getting a higher education, now we’re talking about fulfilling childhood dreams. In the future it will probably be enabling the dreams of others.