What you own and what it earns

Think of a handyman in Heliopolis with a van, a box of tools and a phone full of numbers.

Some of what he has is worth more than it looks. The drill and the ladder, obviously. But also the trust of the building doormen who send him work, the skill of fixing a water heater without making a mess, and the fact that a hundred families would call him before they called a stranger. Those are things he owns. Each one makes an hour of his effort go further than it would for someone starting out.

Then there are the jobs. He puts in time, petrol and patience, and something comes back. Some jobs return more than they took. Some return less, every single time, and he keeps doing them because he always has.

Most of us never sort these two things out, and so we never see the choices hiding inside them.

It is worth writing the first list down. Which of the things I own are most valuable to me, and which are most valuable to other people? Is there something I am sitting on that is quietly going stale, a skill nobody asks for, a contact I never use? Is there one that would grow quickly if I fed it a little money or a little learning?

Then the second list, more honestly. Which of my regular projects still pay me back? Which ones do I keep only because walking away would mean admitting the time already spent was spent?

The answers are rarely comfortable. Dropping the steady job that loses money, or putting real effort into a skill that pays nothing yet, feels like a cost today.

It is. But today is short, and most of our lives are lived in the later that today decides.