How Much Does a Dollar Cost?

The artist and rapper Kendrick Lamar has a song with the same title as this article. And, what follows is actually the fruit of having taken its message to heart.

In the song (spoiler alert) Jesus is a homeless man in disguise asking Lamar for a dollar. By the end of the song, at the expense of keeping a dollar, Lamar loses his soul. After listening to it, I was inspired to consider the true cost of the things I spent the most time with.

For example, how does a smart phone cost?

If you ask google or Alexa, they’ll tell you it costs about $1700 a year. But what does it really cost me? What does it cost me in time and attention? What does it cost me in productivity? What does it cost me relationally?

On the one hand it seems impossible to quantify, right? When my son comes to me and asks me if I can put my phone down and pay attention to him, that clearly cost me something but it’s hard to know what or how much.

On the other hand, it is very quantifiable. For the last three years my phone cost me a little more than $16,000 a year.

I did the math. Given the value of my time determined by the market multiplied by the amount of time I spent on my phone each day, I cost myself, my family, and those I serve nearly $50,000.

That's not a joke. That's deadly serious.

Worse yet, the average person in America has come to believe they get paid on time, fairness, or output. But that's not true. You get paid based on value. While on my phone, do you think I became any more valuable?

So not only did I fail to turn that time I spent on my phone in profit, into investments, into quality. I wasted precious time that could have been spent growing interiorly strong, more well-read, more thoughtful, strategic, patient, kind, and so on.

Today, ask yourself this question, "How much does a dollar really cost?"

What is the real cost of fantasy football? What is the real cost of online shopping? What is the real cost of your phone, social account, binge watching?

And, most importantly, are you comfortable paying the price?