JORGE RODRIGUES SIMAO

In modern Western culture addicted to materialism, workaholism, and speed, the battle cry has become "Time is money." Contrary to this popular belief perpetuated by the business world, time is not money. Time is worth a lot more than money. Time is life. Time is also happiness.

Clearly, in today's fast-paced, stressed-out Western world, time is more precious than ever before. "Lost time," declared Benjamin Franklin, "is never found again." Time, in fact, is our scarcest resource. It is a finite resource on which we place infinite demands by trying to do too much with it.

Billionaire Nicolas Hayek, who reshaped the insolvent Swiss watch industry into a multi-billion dollar empire, had this to say about time: "Time is both wonderful and horrible. It is my work and life. Yet I hate time. Why? Because you cannot stop it. You cannot possess it. It's always present, but if you try to hold it, it disappears. And don't try to use personal tricks to fool time. It will always catch up with you."

If you want to have time on your side, you can't be fighting it. Indeed, to fight time is as asinine as to fight the law of gravity and the Easy Rule of Life. Together, the three will sooner or later - likely sooner than later - put you six feet under. There is no better evidence that you are fighting time than the fact you are always hurried. Always feeling rushed is no way to live for a prosperity-minded individual.

To be sure, the objective of life is not to get through it as fast as possible. Perhaps you aren't concerned about the rapid pace of your life. The thing you should be concerned about, however, is the abrupt stop at the end of it - much earlier than you expected. And you are going to reach the end of life at a much younger age if you don't learn to slow down.

Your mind can be your greatest asset, but it can play tricks on you. One such nasty trick is it makes you believe that you don't have sufficient time to do your work and still have time to lead a satisfying, balanced lifestyle that includes time for relaxation, social engagements, and other leisure activities. Perhaps you should think again! You have 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds in a day. That's the same amount of time that everyone else on Earth has, including people who have a full, relaxed, happy, and satisfying lifestyle.

Putting more time in your life is actually quite easy. Whenever you are short on time for the good things in life, you must create more time by making better use of it. A research study at Penn State University indicated that what we perceive as a time crunch in large measure is just erroneous perception. We all have enough time to do the important and enjoyable things, but we squander it. If we would make excellent use of just 30 or 40 percent of our time, we wouldn't have any shortage.

Other studies indicate that due to fewer children and less housework, the majority of North Americans have more free time now - about five hours a week - than in the recent past. The problem is not one of insufficient leisure time. Free time is available, but most North Americans waste it watching television and pursuing other useless activities.

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another life to draw on in the future when this one runs out. Unfortunately, the clock is always running. Indeed, time stops for no one. Time doesn't care whether you waste it or use it wisely. Time just keeps rolling merrily along. It's up to you to make sure that you don't waste your life away.

You must make time work for you and not against you. Live your life according to the motto "time is happiness" or "time is life" instead of "time is money," and you will show the world that you truly know the value of time. After all, you can't earn more time regardless of how hard you work. Just as important, you can't buy more time no matter how much money you have. So spend your time wisely - much more so than money.