The Value of Time in the Modern Era

There is something about waiting that is exasperating. Is it in the wait, in the minutes that willfully pass us by?

I wonder if it is what we would be doing during those ticking moment that seems to annoy us. Perhaps in the wander of our mind that makes the wait at times tiresome or pleasant other times. Either way, we might agree that waiting can make us feel a certain kind of way.

Nowadays, we find ourselves constantly on the run with less or no time to even catch a breather. Between work, family, hobbies and social life, I wonder if we ever make time for ourselves. Though it can be argued that most of the aforementioned facets of our lives are for us, I wonder how much of it really is. We might be happy at our job, content with our family, fulfilled with our hobbies and enjoying our social lives and yet, we wonder if it is sufficient. Many point out to the ever fast paced lives that each generation seems to take up.

Technological advancements seem to be the primordial driving force behind the increased speed in our daily lives, added to the ever growing demographics amongst many other factors. That being said, it seems as though each generation seems to be facing the same dilemma when it comes to time – it is never enough.

Could we make it through?

This made me ponder on the fact, that time, the wait and all the wonder that it yields is one aspect of our lives. Maybe, we haven’t given enough importance or attention to or maybe some of us do have. That being said, I am certain, we can all recall, a moment where we have uttered phrases such as “Time flies,” “Time flew by,” “Time is lost” and the like, but have we ever wondered why?

I don’t mean to go neither into the origins of these expressions nor into the meaning of them but rather intend to explore the necessity of evoking such exclamations in our daily lives. A while ago, I came across an interesting person who seemed to have figured out the best way to deal with this dilemma and I found out, it was all about time management. Nothing we haven’t heard before right?

With the ever popular self-help books budding from everywhere, about how to efficiently utilize or effectively maximize it, it seems, we easily forget the practical side to it. It was recently explained very simply, that time management is not solely in the allocation of the hours that are given to us or in the wise distribution of activities within the day. But rather the understanding of it. Of course, philosophically understanding time is obscure and therefore, in this case, I refer to the division of the concept of time into seconds, minutes and hours. Do we understand time enough before managing it?

I wonder if it is easy to state that we have sufficient quantitative time on our hands, following the simple calculations I am about to demonstrate. We all have twenty four hours in a day and if hypothetically, we work forty hours a week. That is if we all take an hour for personal hygiene a day or if we all get a decent six hour sleep each night and eat three meals a day, for about an hour. Each time then we are left with fifty eight extra hours each week.

Obviously, the aggregated one hundred and ten hours a week are a part of our obligations, as functioning citizens, in our society but the remaining fifty eight hours are clearly ours, to utilize, as we please. Let’s ask ourselves, how we can best use them. I am well aware that part of those fifty eight hours are taken up by the time we transport ourselves to and from work, social gatherings and so on. But even then, if we give ourselves on average, three hours a day to commute, we are still left with thirty seven hours a week on our hands.

Are those the flying hours?


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