People freak out when you waste food, even though the Depression was like a million years ago (estimation). They freak out when you waste water, electricity and so on but these same types of people, I’ve noticed, don’t have a huge respect for wasting time.
That other stuff is regainable. Time on the other hand, is the most limited resource in the known universe. Every second that tics by, is gone forever. 5 minutes ago exists now only in your memory. You’ll never get it back no matter what.
Time however, is relative and not all time is created equal. Sorry hippies and Christians, but Mother Earth and Brother Jesus might love the homeless drug addict and the CEO of a major company the same, but their time does not yield the same market value. The good news about this, however is that the individual is in control over the value of their time. Even if it doesn’t become valuable to others around them or society at large, they can still choose to make it worthless or precious. It’s a control over ones destiny that is often overlooked while people leave their time-faucets running on things that don’t matter. Not to them. Not to others. Not to society. Just wasting the most valuable thing in the universe.
The observation that time is a limited and precious recourse doesn’t give trolls a seeming excuse to use the “I want my X minutes back” after watching something stupid on Youtube but rather highlights the fact that such people are probably dishonestly appraising their time. If the user was taking a break from logging hours of cancer research then perhaps a case can be made but even then, the responsibility of prudent choices in where ones daily allowance of time is spent rests ultimately on the spender unless they are outright deceived over the transaction. More likely however, the Consumer, or in this case – the Time Consumer – merely put poor amounts of thought and consideration into their time usage.
Smart people set up Time Retirement plans, log Time Unemployment, stockpile a Time Rainy Day fund and so on. Dumb people just turn on the faucet and let it run. Wasting the only thing in this dimension we exist in that can never be recovered or remade in any form. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. There is only the future. Be aware of that next time you go spending…
“You can lose all your money and somehow work and get it back. but you can never get time back.
It’s the most precious of commodities that nature provides.
Money is recoverable…
Property is recoverable…
Time is precious.”
– Dennis Prager
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