Time is money

By Sapna Agarwal

Today my daughter came to me and said – ‘its evening, lets make tea’. A common statement but uncommon because it did not have a time stamp – as in ‘Its 5:30 pm, lets make tea’.

It set me thinking what a luxury it has been to be free of the ever-ticking time bomb.

For the past many years my life has been a series of time stamps – get up at 5:30 am, wake daughter up by 6:00 am, make sure she’s at the bus stop by 7:00 am, get ready by 7:30 am and reach destination by 9:00 am ( before the traffic builds up) etc etc…ending in – switch off the lights by 10:30 pm so that the same routine can start again.

Its as if my entire 24 hours have been mortgaged to some force and I get them back in bits and pieces. I have forgotten that the day has many hours that can be morning, afternoon, evening or better sounding dawn, dusk etc. The time is all mine and not all these hours have to be productively used – some can be used doing nothing or just relaxing or doing some activity which does not have an end time.

Now that the time bomb is relaxed (albeit temporarily and for the larger good hopefully temporarily) I am just revelling in the luxury of time. The clock is immaterial – just another accessory. The sunrise and sunset are indicators enough and no two days are alike in time schedule. No amount of money can buy this state of mind. As a child I learnt that ‘time is money’ and after all these years I really understood the meaning.

Sapna Agarwal is a management professional and has worked in the corporate and education sectors for long years. She writes short poems and articles  mostly on current issues. She is a keen observer of human nature and how they react in good times and bad. She lives in Bangalore with her eleven-year-old daughter.