Marc Cuniberti So many of us, me included, pay through the teeth, either our hard earned money, or our God-given amount of time we have left on the planet by inattentiveness.
It is an economic topic of course, as anything that costs us money ends up, well, costing us money. And if we squander our time going nowhere or in proverbial circles, it costs us as well, as we all know, time is money.
We can always make more money, but we cannot make more time. Therefore time is the most precious of all commodities.
We can burn this most valuable commodity in a variety of ways, but inattentiveness, not paying attention to something, can be one way time gets away from us, and when it’s gone we obviously cannot get it back.
One could cite hundreds of examples of how a lack of attention can cost us money.
Looking away and crashing your car. Not putting out a cigarette and burning the house down. Forgetting to lock the door and being burglarized. Ignoring the advice to exercise and then incurring medical costs for our subsequent ills.
The costs can run from pennies to millions, a minor inconvenience to a career and just about anything else depending on the transgression of inattention we commit.
I penned an article a year or so back awakening job seekers to the fact that during and immediately after the CoVid event, jobs were plentiful and a perfect time to move into a good job with perhaps minimal qualifications for that job.
For example, during that time, many so-called white collar jobs, which would have required experience or a college degree to obtain, were handed out to whoever may have had the wherewithal to apply.
Companies of every shape and size were stranded when it came to staffing and badly needed warm bodies to fill the positions needed when the CoVid lockdowns were lifted. Being desperate, many employers eased up on the experience-needed requirements and various certifications or qualifications normally asked for. Many subsequently took on the “we will train” attitude.
At the time, I told my son about this rare opportunity to easily get a GOOD job due to the fact few people wanted to work, but he paid little attention to his father. Now he scans the job websites looking to upgrade his current job but that ship has sailed.
Our inattention can cost others too. I was preoccupied thinking about something and didn’t notice a low wall behind my truck’s tailgate and backed into it, costing me and the insurance company fix-it costs. Add in the time it all took to fix it at the body shop, and although they made money, it does the economy little good to start throwing rocks to break things to stimulate the economy.
Last week or so I wrote an article about employment, inflation, national parks and the cost of living. A reader commented not only on that article but on a few past musings of mine and attempted to pin me against the wall by misquoting me so many times I had to use a calculator to count them all.
I finally decided it was not worth the time to address such misaligned plagiarism. I was going to offer up my services to correct the miscues, but decided enough time had been wasted by him, by my readers, my editors, my compliance guru and myself as to spend any more time on trying to bend his ear back to the correct position.
And since indeed time is money, think about the time wasted in traffic jams because of an accident caused by someone who was not paying attention, a failed test, or even an airplane exit door that flies off because someone forgot to tighten the bolts, or install them altogether. On that point, we could extrapolate to lives lost due to inattentiveness but let’s not go there.
In a world of limited resources, we tend to think in the physical world when it comes to cutting waste, and rightly so. Conserving and paying attention to wasteful practices, recycling and the way we consume and dispose of stuff is important and globally impactful.
But think how much we could save, conserve and benefit from, if we pay a little more attention to, well, paying attention.
“Watching the markets so you don’t have to”
This article expresses the opinion of Marc Cuniberti and is not meant as investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, nor represents the opinion of any bank, investment firm or RIA, nor this media outlet, its staff, members or underwriters. Mr. Cuniberti holds a B.A. in Economics with honors, 1979, and California Insurance License #0L34249. His insurance agency is BAP INC. insurance services. Email: [email protected]
