“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back.”—Harvey Mackay
A pet concept of mine is that people should be born with all the wealth they will ever have and as they age they have corresponding less and less. When life finally ends, their bank account would be down to zero. It is nice to envisage having your wealth when you can most enjoy it.
But, life is not designed that way. We spend our lifetime acquiring possessions and then most people end life with a little something to pass on to the next generation or the government.
There is another aspect of life—time—that does work on this principle of having all of the possession at birth and then corresponding less and less of it as we age, until at the end we have none.
Of the two, the second is the most valuable and the most fleeting. As author Denis Waitley wrote, “Time is the most precious element of human existence.” While time is valuable it is not infinite. Its value is derived from its scarcity and its fleetness. John Randolf stated it this way, “Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.”
I read a newspaper article about NASA sending a spacecraft crashing into the moon to see if there is any water or ice below the surface. The impact site is a crater at the moon’s South Pole that hasn’t seen sunlight in billions of years. I don’t know if they will find traces of water. But, I know a billion years is a long, long time.
Time has a dimension of speed. The speed is easily calculated by the number of candles on a birthday cake. When we are young, time drags; when we are old time flies. You never ask a youngster if they have a minute; they have a lifetime. Ask a Senior Citizen if they have a minute and they may answer, “That’s all the time I have, a minute.”
A paradox has emerged in this electronic age: people have an endless supply of gadgets that are suppose to create more time for them, but at the same time they are adding information overload, increased activities, and additional projects that eat up the time.
There are a lot of thoughts on time. Here are some that I think are worth your time.
• Take care in your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves. — Lord Chesterfield
• Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again. — Ovid
• Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.—Benjamin Franklin
• The time is always right to do what is right. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
• They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. — Andy Warhol
• We always have time enough if we will but use it aright. —Goethe
• Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it. —Jim Rohn
• The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot. —Michael Althsuler
• In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking. — Sir John Lubbock
• I dare you, while there is time, to have a magnificent obsession. —William Danforth
If I had to choose my favorite, I’d choose the quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. If we take the time to do what is right, we rightly invest where the payoff is the largest.
When I think about it, time has a monetary value. Therefore everything we do or don’t do has a cost associated with it. Each year has 8,760 hours. If we allow 2,920 for sleeping, there remains 5,840 discretionary hours. Assign a value to your time. At $20 an hour, your wakening time is worth $116,800 a year; at $25 per hour $146,000. Do you spend your time wisely on actions that bring you closer to your goals?
It is my experience that the importance of a project is inversely related to the time available; the more important the project the less time available; the lower the projects priority the more time available. This is why the best people should always work on the priority project. This is also the rational for personal projects— work on important projects. Invest time where there is a big payoff. I find I can’t do everything. In fact, my experience leads me to believe that some things are not worth the time.
Successful people are those who have mastered time. They know that time has no past, no future; only a present. You can’t change the past nor can you predict the future. But, you can make the best use of your time today. Author and Publisher, Elbert Hubbard wrote, “If you want work well done, select a busy man—the other kind has not time.”
We all come into the world with no wealth but arrive on time, with our allotted time. As we age, we gain wealth, but exhaust our time, until there is no time. The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca stated it well, “Whatever begins also ends.” The count-down clock is ticking. Use time wisely, there are no resets or carry over minutes.
HOG THOUGHT: Bracketed between two sunrises are 1440 minutes. We should not be so busy making a living that we fail to make a life. Each 24-hour period contains great possibilities and corresponding great responsibilities. Look for the opportunities; search for the possibilities; be committed. It may be your time.
HOG QUOTE: “Remember, you can earn more money, but when time is spent, it is gone forever.” — Zig Ziglar
HOG ACTION: Take time to think; but when the time comes to act, act!
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