What is the most expensive thing in the world?

Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

What is the most expensive thing in the world? The question has been intriguing me for quite some time. But before we discuss further it's important to understand why the question itself is important. I believe the question is extremely relevant as we invest a significant portion of our time in different activities which gives us certain returns. If we know the most expensive stuff then at least we can aspire for it and put our energies in the right direction thus enabling us to achieve the goal. The question can also help to choose a career path and how we evaluate incremental success.

Now, let's get back to the main question. For me the most expensive stuff in this world is the ability to spend time the way you like. The word ability is very important here. This means that if you don't want to work right now, you would have a choice and you would not be forced to work or if you want to do something you are not limited by resources.  To accomplish this would be close to attaining freedom in the true sense of the word and would propel one in a direction to achieve something extraordinary as the work would always be driven by pure passion.

There are three things required to achieve this ability. In the order of least importance first, they are money, health, time. Let's deep dive in each of them.

Health
I have started with health because it's the easiest to explain. If you don't have good health then your bucket of choice is limited. Assume that you have all the resources in the world but if you can't walk then simple enjoyments of life like taking a nice walk becomes difficult or rather painful. On the flip side, being healthy does not mean that you need six packs. It's simply an ability to move from point A to point B without any discomfort or pain.  If you are losing this ability then you are moving in an opposite direction of becoming the wealthiest man in this world. Therefore, thinking about health is super especially any discomfort that lingers for a long time.

Money
I started with health for another reason besides easy to explain because now you know that money is only a factor and not a super important factor. Among all three, money is the least important. The reason is money is merely a proxy to either help you attain better health or buy more time for you. If you have an ailment then you need money to cure that ailment. Even for life threatening diseases you can use money to extend your time. Money would always give you that option. On a very different note, money can help you buy more time in a daily basis. A very trivial example would be washing of clothes. If you have money, then you can buy washing machine which can significantly reduce the time spent for the same activity. Similarly, if you have money then you can hire someone to cook for you thereby giving you more time. If you agree with the thought, then on a slightly different trajectory, you can use this as a litmus test to see if you are spending money in the right way or not. Example if you buy a car that reduces your time to commute, then it will be a good investment contrary to buying chocolates which does not help in giving you more time and also might impact your health in a negative way thus costing you even more. So, spend money in a way which helps you get either more time or make you a healthy person.

Time
This is the most important dimension because of a simple reason that all of us have limited time in this world. Our health is going to deteriorate at some point of time in an irreversible way and all of us would eventually die. If you consider an average person with a lifespan of optimistic 80 years, then you would be spending first 25-30 years of life building a career and last 15-20 years with your ailing health and limited ability of choice. So, at best one has only around 40 years to make the best of this world. If you consider sleeping time and other activities related to basic keep up, you would not have more than 25 years which is not a huge amount of time. Thus, if you are building your career in a way such that you are spending more and more time in your office, you are not moving in a direction of becoming the world's wealthiest person. Build your career in a way such that either you amass a huge wealth in a short time at the expense of spending more time at work so that you have more time in future or ensure that you have the right set of delegations when you move up in your career, so that your life is balanced.
If you agree with what I have mentioned then you would also agree that Bill Gates was probably never the wealthiest person in this world. Money is just one factor and based on what I have written an average person has a huge potential to become the wealthiest person of this world.


All the best in aspiring and attempting to become the wealthiest person in this world!!