Time is Money is Time

Imagine you’re walking through the streets of  a busy city and in front of you is a well-dressed gentleman walking at a brisk pace. And every minute, he reaches into his pocket and drops a $10 bill onto the street. You bend down and pick it up. A real $10 bill. Naturally, you continue to follow him.

Soon he has a whole entourage of people trailing behind him. Every minute, some other lucky follower gets a ten.

By the time he has reached his destination, he’s thrown away hundreds of dollars.

As it turns out, his destination was the Welfare Department. “Help me, please. I have no money”.

What would you say? He’s crazy, no?

Who throws away their own money, especially if they don’t have it or, at best, a limited supply of it?

Money comes and money goes and sometimes you can make it back. 

There  is a concept called time. But unlike money, time only goes.

When you’re a child growing up you say, “I want to be a fireman, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a millionaire”.

Hey, why not? Go for it. There’s plenty of time. At least when you’re a kid, that is. The more time you have, the more you can take time to develop yourself.

As grownups, we are fortunate in today’s modern society, that even if we’re not (yet) millionaires, we still have the luxury of spare time. The time line may not be as long, but there are still 24 hours in each day and 365 days in our years.

If someone wasting money is crazy (with a chance that someday he may get it back), how much more so someone who wastes their time?

Read a book, learn a trade, help another, take up a hobby, develop your mind, explore your heritage, investigate your family tree. The value of spare time is when it is spent wisely.

Remember, fruit flies like bananas (see previous article), but time flies like the wind.