The critical question we must consider is “How does the recognition of the value of time, the change in our attitude to time, time management and time consciousness translate into economic growth or increase in GDP for that matter?
Dear Readers, can you imagine waking up this morning and credited to your account is $86,400 USD. However you only have 24 hours to spend it.
Just like the biblical manna from heaven, this blessing works by the same principle. By the time you go back to bed, 12 mid night, whatever money you have not spent would be wiped out off your account. By 6 am the next morning you will be credited with another $86,400 USD and at 12 midnight your account will again be emptied.
That is exactly the amount of wealth God gives to each and every one of us on a daily basis. God has made the provision for every man on earth to be equally endowed with this currency. So in actual fact every human being is equally wealthy according to God’s divine Providence.
The wealth I am referring to is the wealth of TIME. It is the only wealth every human being comes to the earth with. We are all endowed with it equally. Everybody that is born on the surface of this earth, has this wealth. “Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose” – Thomas Edison.
Ladies and gentlemen, this wealth is actually of more value than natural resources (petroleum, gold, diamond, gas etc.). It is the only wealth that is more valuable than human resources. The resource of time is the ultimate resource. Time is the ultimate wealth.
You may ask “How could time be more valuable than human resource?” Oh yea! The reason is because a human resource is limited to the duration of his/her lifespan, while time is unlimited.
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.” – Margaret Bonnano.
Human resources could be purchased and sold but not time. Once lost it can never be regained. The value of time is only equal to the value of life. As a matter of fact, life itself is measured by time. Time therefore is the measurement of life. Do you love life? Then don’t waste time!
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff that life is made of.” – Benjamin Franklin.
Time is the only commodity in life that cannot be bought, sold, borrowed, given out as a gift and it cannot be inherited. “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.” – Peter F. Drucker
Anybody that does not value time does not value life. Whenever we lose time we are actually losing our life.
Now, let me unveil the riddle to you. The $86,400 USD I mentioned above is actually the amount of seconds we all have in a day. That amount of seconds God credits to each and every one of us daily. But when you go to bed it is wiped out and you get another one credited to you when you wake up.
The only difference is: in the analogy I gave above, I refer to the figure 86,400 as if it were in US dollars, but in the real sense it is much more serious than that. It is not USD that is being jeopardised on daily basis, it is actually 86,400 seconds of your life. You are given that amount of life every day in time, not in dollars. That amount of time is to be converted into some products, benefits, goods, services, welfare, ministry, but most of us actually truncate this amount of wealth on a daily basis.
“I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.” – Bernard Berenson.
The reason I have decided to address this issue as a factor of economic regeneration for Africa and Nigeria in particular, is because there is no other part of the world where time is more viciously squandered as on the continent of Africa.
I would not waste your time here trying to prove to you that we don’t know the value of time in Africa, especially Nigeria where I come from. The term “African time” is all too well a sad testimony for which Africa has become notoriously famous.
My assignment in this write up is to open the eyes of my fellow Africans and Nigerians in particular to the fact that our GDP could be doubled in a very short time, if only we recognise this singular factor of the value of time.
If we could all change our attitude towards time and begin to value time as people do in Europe, Japan, America, we would experience a tremendous increase in our industrial output as a nation and continent.
I plan to prove to you that the wealth of time we waste in Africa, is worth much more than all the natural resources we have on the continent. I also hope to convince you with facts and figures that a more positive attitude toward time management would accelerate our economic development as we have never seen before.
Let me quickly paint a picture of the value of time to you my friends:
• If you want to know the value of a year, ask the student who was in the final year of his university education, when the lecturers then went on strike and the school ended up closing for a year;
• If you want to know the value of a month, ask a pregnant woman, if a month matters in her pregnancy;
• If you want to know the value of a week, ask the editor of a weekly magazine if he fails to meet up with the target of his weekly publication;
• If you want to know the value of a day, ask someone who could not find food to eat or water to drink for a whole day when he is hungry;
• If you want to know the value of an hour, ask new love birds (lovers) that are waiting for each other at different bus stations;
• If you want to know the value of a minute, ask the person who came to the train station or airport a minute late;
• If you want to know the value of a second, ask the person who just crossed the road at the wrong time and barely escaped being hit by a speeding car;
• If you want to know the value of half a second, ask the person who came second in a sprint event at the Olympics.
“So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12
The critical question we must consider is “How does the recognition of the value of time, the change in our attitude to time, time management and time consciousness translate into economic growth or increase in GDP for that matter?
Sunday Adelaja is a Nigeria born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He is based in Kiev, Ukraine. He can be contacted at sundayadelajablog@gmail.com.
