Ebenezer Scrooge, the character from the Dickens novel had it wrong. Instead of being intensely greedy with his money, he needed to be intensely greedy with his time. Time is the one thing that we cannot save, cannot hold on to, we spend it whether we want to or not. Time just keeps ticking along, a relentless forward progression toward an end that will eventually not include us as a passenger. Time is the only real currency that we have in this life. Everything else is even more fleeting, even more temporary. Time is the one thing that we can and should be the miser.
The stoic philosopher Seneca wrote that people spend a lot of effort guarding personal property, but the thing that they squander is time. They are wasteful with the thing that should be the most conservative with. Time is all you really have in this life. We burn time, We waste time. Worse is this concept. If a vagrant asked you for money, you might if you felt generous give them some pocket change, or at the most a 5 dollar bill. Would you give them a thousand dollars? What if they asked you for 10,000 dollars, how would you react!? You might get mad, you might laugh, you would walk away quickly. However, everyday, every minute, every hour of your life you are letting people constantly take from you seconds, minutes, hours, days of your life. That time is the most valuable and precious thing that you own. I do not know what you think your time is worth, but your employer is paying you a certain amount for it. So there is absolutely a value behind your time, so why do we give away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of time away, yet scoff when a homeless person asks for a few bucks?
You probably do not realize the value of your time. You will never get it back. That time with a loved one may never come again. The time you spend with that six year old child, will never happen again. That time is more valuable then any jewel, precious thing, or currency the world has to offer. It is amazing how much we do not recognize this when we are in these moments.
Time is your greatest asset, your must valuable commodity. Be greedy. Please.
Guy Reams
