A few days ago the esteemed Portuguese author Miguel Esteves Cardoso, aged 68, eloquently penned the following words in Publico, a distinguished Portuguese newspaper:
“...true wealth lies in the ability to conserve time and then indulge in its expenditure. The affluent save time for themselves, while the less fortunate are left with the burden of time-consuming tasks that consume the hours of everyone: the chronophagous endeavors. The wealthy, with their surplus of resources, purchase the time of those less privileged, who are compelled to trade their time for income merely to subsist. Although it may appear to be a transaction of money, it is, in essence, an exchange of time. The affluent acquire time for the disadvantaged, leaving the latter without it...”
Contrast this thought-provoking excerpt with a compelling study on the acquisition of time and its impact on happiness published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (see email below of July 2017) the study engaged over 6000 participants from diverse countries. Consider also the insights shared by a former Uruguayan president in the same email. This correspondence is complemented by another email from October 2016, exploring the aspirations of academics regarding their legacy once their scholarly journeys conclude.
PS – In the present context is it worth revisiting the previous post “The best of times, the worst of times, and the times that we no longer have”
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De: F. Pacheco Torgal
Enviado: 26 de Julho de 2017 7:57
Assunto: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences__”Buying time promotes happiness”
Abstract: “Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and The Netherlands (n = 6,271), we show that individuals who spend money on time-saving services report greater life satisfaction. A field experiment provides causal evidence that working adults report greater happiness after spending money on a time-saving purchase than on a material purchase. Together, these results suggest that using money to buy time can protect people from the detrimental effects of time pressure on life satisfaction” https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1706541114
Strangely, a few years ago, José Mujica former President of Uruguay (2010-2015) made a brief statement that accurately reflects this finding: “when we buy something, we are not paying it with money we are paying with the time of our lives and its terrible to waste life losing freedom”
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De: F. Pacheco Torgal
Enviado: 27 de Outubro de 2016 8:26
Assunto: Honor in the Academic Profession: How Professors Want to be Remembered by Colleagues
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/612675/summary
60 physicists of all ages working at a range of U.S. universities were interviewed in person by the author about multiple aspects of their careers, including the scientists’ aspirations, assessments of their achievements and failures, and conceptions of future and “immortalized” selves. Interviews from which the present work was drawn averaged 90 minutes in length…For the present work, attention is focused on a specific question asked of the respondents: “How would you like to be remembered by your colleagues?”
desires to be remembered by colleagues on principally professional terms increase as institutional prestige increases. By contrast, desires to be remembered on principally personal terms increase as institutional prestige declines…As age increases, desire to be remembered on principally professional terms declines; and the desire to be remembered on principally personal terms intensifies. What is more, as age increases, the percentage of scientists “not caring” about how colleagues remember them increases. The percentage of scientists not caring about how their colleagues remember them, combined with the percentage of those desiring remembrance in personal ways, is particularly striking in the eldest cohort, where the attenuation of professional emphases is most pronounced. Great scientific achievement—even in an era of modern science—has been connoted with “unlocking the mind of God”(Paul, 1980).
In an absence of great achievement, morality preserves a route to salvation, identifying how people can orient themselves to the “good” (Stets, 2010). In addition, it always marks sacrifice, as though to say: “Look at what I gave up, so that others could prosper.” By invoking claims to a moral status, a scientist—relegated to a location peripheral to the major activity at the center of science—provides an excuse as well as an explanation for not having fully realized one’s own ego. Remembered as “being good” by others in the profession thus becomes compensation for comparative failure…Morality, because it is the embodiment of virtue, is a protected status.
Pacheco-Torgal 
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