There are things I want to create before I die.
Not things I casually think would be cool.
Things that live inside me.
Worlds. Stories. Ideas. Businesses. Things that could help people. Things I haven't even discovered yet.
And lately I've been thinking about the one resource every one of those dreams requires.
Time.
Not talent.
Not money.
Not connections.
Time.
And the strange thing about time is that most of us spend the majority of our lives trying to earn enough money to survive while giving away the very resource we're actually trying to obtain.
We trade time for money.
Then spend the money trying to enjoy whatever time remains.
Forty hours go to work.
Sleep takes another piece.
Responsibilities take theirs.
And eventually you arrive at the weekend.
Forty-eight hours.
The clock starts immediately.
48:00:00.
And it's counting down.
For somebody living in survival, those 48 hours are precious.
Because somewhere inside those hours exists the possibility of building something that could eventually buy some of your time back.
I've been thinking about Sundays.
I'm a huge 49ers fan.
I love football.
There's a feeling I get watching my team play that very few forms of entertainment can reproduce.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But I had to ask myself a harder question.
What does Sunday actually cost me?
There are roughly 52 Sundays every year.
If I'm awake for 16 hours each Sunday, that's:
832 waking hours.
More than twenty 40-hour workweeks.
And historically, football hasn't always cost me three hours.
Sometimes watching the game meant drinking.
And drinking meant the game ended, but my productive day ended with it.
Three hours quietly became sixteen.
That's when the question changed.
It wasn't:
"Should I stop watching football?"
It became:
"How much do I value my time?"
Because maybe the goal isn't to never watch another football game.
Maybe the goal is to build a life where I can watch every damn game.
Maybe one day I have season tickets.
Maybe I'm sitting in the stadium instead of watching from the couch.
Maybe I can travel to away games.
Maybe Sunday belongs completely to me because Monday belongs completely to me too.
That's the part I was missing.
I'm not trying to give up the things I love.
I'm trying to buy enough of my life back to enjoy them without a clock hanging over my head.
And suddenly sacrifice looks different.
If I spend Sunday creating instead of consuming, I'm not necessarily losing Sunday.
I may be investing one Sunday into thousands of future Sundays.
That's a bet.
There is no guarantee.
Nobody can promise me that the things inside my imagination will become successful businesses.
Nobody can promise me that the worlds I want to create will find an audience.
Nobody can promise me financial freedom.
But there is something I can decide.
Whether I believe in myself enough to try.
Because belief isn't something you say.
Belief has a receipt.
And the receipt is what you're willing to invest.
Your attention.
Your discipline.
Your energy.
Your hours.
If I can spend hundreds of hours watching other people pursue their dreams, surely I can spend hundreds pursuing mine.
Think about how strange fandom becomes when you look at it that way.
We'll follow somebody else's journey for twenty years.
Buy their jersey.
Know their statistics.
Defend them when they lose.
Celebrate when they win.
Show up next season when everything falls apart.
We understand loyalty perfectly when it comes to other people.
But what would happen if we became that loyal to ourselves?
What if I became a fan of my own unfinished story?
What if I showed up for myself when nobody was watching?
What if I continued creating when the numbers were terrible?
What if I believed in my vision during the losing seasons?
What if I gave my dreams the same patience I've given teams, artists, companies and people who don't even know my name?
Maybe that's what belief in yourself actually looks like.
Not arrogance.
Not believing you're better than anybody.
Just deciding:
My life deserves my participation.
I don't want to spend this incarnation exclusively consuming things other people had the courage to create.
I want to create too.
I want to build worlds.
I want to tell stories.
I want to create things that help people remember something about themselves.
I want to see The Boy and the Dream exist outside my imagination.
I want to see what ACU becomes if I actually give it years instead of moments.
And I want freedom.
Not because I hate work.
Because I love life.
I want mornings that belong to me.
I want afternoons where creativity doesn't have to fight exhaustion.
I want to spend time with the people I love without mentally watching the weekend disappear.
I want to wake up and decide where my energy goes.
I want the ability to say:
Today I'm creating.
Or:
Today I'm resting.
Or even:
Today I'm going to the 49ers game.
And none of those choices threaten my survival.
That's wealth to me.
Ownership of time.
So maybe this isn't about productivity.
Maybe it isn't about hustle.
Maybe it isn't even about football.
Maybe it's about becoming conscious enough to recognize the value of an hour while you still possess it.
Because every day we're making purchases with our attention.
Some purchases give us pleasure.
Some give us memories.
Some give us relationships.
Some give us knowledge.
And some purchases might eventually give us freedom.
I don't want to eliminate pleasure from my life.
I want to stop accidentally spending the currency required to build the life I'm asking for.
Because there may come a Sunday when I'm sitting inside Levi's Stadium watching the 49ers play.
And maybe I'll think about all those Sundays years earlier when I chose to stay home and build.
And I'll understand something.
I never gave up football.
I bought Sunday.
And maybe that was the point all along.
