Concept of Time

I’m sure by now you’ve seen that famous money and seconds quote. No? Okay, here it is

“Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to used during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank, it's name is time. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off at a lost, whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and health. The clock is running. Make the most of today.”

Let’s talk about the concept of time. 1 second may feel like forever when you’re waiting for the timer to countdown while you’re finishing up your last set of 3 minute planks. 1 second may feel too short when you’re at the platform and your loved one needs to board the train and move away forever. Time is subjective to your attitude. I was speaking to a friend about this and they had said that they didn’t want to “waste time.” The way I see it, “wasting time” suggests that what you did was inferior to your other options and you did it anyway. Let’s put this into perspective. Say you’re needing to study for a huge test yet you’re scrolling through social media. Next thing you know, you see an opening for this dream company that you wanted to work for, you apply and you get it. Would that time spent on social media be considered a waste of time? No. But let’s say you’re scrolling through social media and then you end up failing the test. Would that be considered a waste of time? Yes. So what changed? The result in which you prioritized that the time. Hindsight is always 20/20. Of course you shouldn’t have been on social media but you had two outcomes: 1) finding an opportunity of the lifetime (very rare but could happen) or 2) not devoting enough focus in your work and failing the test. So I guess what I’m trying to say is time is going to go on regardless of what you do. Just like your life - whether you zig when you’re supposed to .zag or if you zag when you were supposed to zig - life happens around the decisions you make. Say you didn’t pass the huge test but it led you to a different opportunity to work for XYZ company and then you end up meeting your best friend there or meeting the love of your life there. Things happen for a reason and that there’s a bigger thing coming that you cannot see right now. Steve Jobs said “you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backwards.” You never know where life is going to take you so just pick a route and go. If it’s meant to happen, it will. But you do nothing but waste time (the one thing you wanted to avoid) by weighing out options and not doing anything. Pick a route and go. It may work out for your right away, it may not but you wouldn’t know unless you gave it a try. I’m excited to hear your thoughts on it, if any. Thanks for reading