Money.

Muscles.

Minutes.

All three are examples of resources of value; that women value especially. How a man manages these resources is what ultimately sets him apart from other men. Of the three, a man's time is the most precious, but least respected.

Certainly, it requires an investment of time to build a strong aesthetic body, but this is a wise investment with excellent returns. Once built, only a small investment of time is required to maintain an great physique. If tarnished or lost, strength and form can be forged once again, though much faster than before. Ultimately, strength and form are renewable resources that are worth the investment.

Money is much the same. The initial time investment to build a stable financial base for your life (learning high-value skills, establishing a great reputation in your field, making intelligent investments, etc) is considerable. Once established, your ability to earn, save, and spend wisely, allows you to keep filling the war-chest with relative ease. If lost, fortunes can be rebuilt, often faster than the first time around since you have already developed valuable skills and connections. Riches too are a renewable resource.

Time is not. Once a minute is spent, there is no renewing it. You will only be young once. Your son will only be a toddler learning to walk once. You only have this calendar day to live once.

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"A person's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed." - Job 14:5 NIV

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God is sovereign and has allotted you a fixed number of years, months, days, minutes, seconds, to live. Time is a finite and non-renewable commodity. This fact should lead us to be more judicious in how we spend our time than our money. Yet the vast majority of people, Christians no less, show little respect for their time and treat it casually.

For reference, if you are 25 years old at the time of this post and live to 80 (slightly higher than average life expectancy in the US) you only have 481,609 hours left to be alive. Take 8 hours out for sleeping and another 5.5 for working each day (accounting for weekends and two weeks vacation) and you are left with only 270,095 hours of discretionary time. (calculator)

The stoic philosopher Seneca wrote a letter titled On The Shortness Of Life. It is well worth reading. In it he writes:

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"Men will never allow anyone to take possession of their estates, and at the slightest dispute on boundary lines they pick up stones and rush to arms; but they do allow others to trespass on their lives... men are very strict in keeping their patrimony intact, but when it comes to squandering time they are most lavish of the one item were miserliness is respectable."

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Your time is the most precious resource you have to manage. Do you treat it as such, or are you a spendthrift casting your pearls before swine? Our culture has been constructed to extract your most precious possession, time, with minimum effort and without payment.

When you are scrolling endlessly on social media, reading yet another news article that will be irrelevant tomorrow, and whacking it to "free" porn five times a day, you are selling your time to corporations that do not give a singular damn about you for $0.00. I ran the numbers and did the math. Here is the analysis of that investment.

How do you spend your time? If someone were to observe your average day, would they come away with the impression that you respect your time? If the answer is no, why on earth should they respect you?

Withdrawing Time And Attention

A man providing and withdrawing his time and attention to a woman can be an effective way to discourage bad behavior and encourage, reward, and reinforce good behavior... if his time is worth anything. Turns out the man who regularly sells his time for $0.00 does not have a lot of impact on a woman when he withdraws it from her.

Why should it matter to her?

A woman who sees a man constantly squandering his time as if it weren't worth anything very well may come to the conclusion that his time is indeed as worthless as he treats it. Not only does his withdrawing his time and attention mean little to her, but his giving her his time and attention is nearly insulting.

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"If the man who spends his time on worthless things spends it on me, does that make me worthless too?" - her hamster

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Contrast this with the man who respects the value of his time and spends it carefully. He doesn't waste it on useless frivolity. He demands a high rate of return from any employer wanting to purchase his time from him. He is selective in who he spends time with. When he recreates it is not mindless idleness but an active pursuit of leisure. When such a shrewd man spends his time on something or someone, he is making a statement: this is valuable and worth spending my precious time on.

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"The frugal steward finds nothing worth trading his time for; that is why he has enough of it." - Seneca

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That is the sort of man who can remove his time and attention and it be felt as a loss, or give his time and attention and it be felt as a gift. Consider Elon Musk's recent investment of 1.5 billion dollars in Bitcoin. Like him or hate him, Elon Musk is a heavyweight in the market and by giving his attention and resources to Bitcoin, the market responded and greatly upgraded the value of the commodity.

A man who has a track record for not wasting his time and spending it wisely can likewise confer value on people and things when he deems them worthy of spending time on. This, ultimately, is why the time and attention of an alpha is so craved by women. By attracting his attention, she is proving herself valuable enough for a guy like him to spend his valuable time on her.

Do not hoard your time, but invest it wisely and spend it well. Length of life is not a substitute for quality of life.

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"You cannot, therefore, accept a hoary head and wrinkles as proof of a long life; the man has existed a long time, he has not lived a long time." - Seneca

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Last year one of my aunts died at a relatively young age. She was the youngest of her siblings and she was survived by her mother. Her death was made less sorrowful because, while she hadn't lived a long life, she had lived a lot more life than most people twice her age. She invested her time on important and enriching things. She never counted on having more time later in life and she was blessed to have had lived with this perspective.

Respect the ultimate non-renewable resource in your life. Do not let other break into your frame and steal it from you, or worse, give it away for a pittance.

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"So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." - Psalm 90:12