Why time is more than gold?

Time is Gold—this is too much of a cliché, right? In one of my master’s classes, we were asked of our top 5 mottos. This was my 4th (I don’t have a fifth). 2 people giggled when I jokingly said this to myself aloud. Not because it’s funny but maybe because it has lost its meaning- too cliché-ish. For some, this might seem foolish, thinking to themselves “I have all the time in the world, why am I not rich?” or something like it. No doubt about you having all the time in the world. You have it as long as you are alive and you can do anything with it. You can slack around, do interesting stuff, sleep all day, maybe work, study, establish a habit, and invent something— anything under the scorching heat of the sun.

Question is: Where does what you do bring you? Does it bring you to where you want to be?

Before answering that, let me share why I’m one of the believers of “Time is Gold”. If you are working for a company, most likely, you are paid for the time you spent at the office (whether or not you contributed to the development of the organization). If you do volunteer work, you are still of value cause the institution you’ve helped saved money because of you. I’m not saying that we are being payed solely because of our time but that is a big part of it—your skills are being paid by the hour. But time isn’t gold just for money. Gold is something valuable and so is time. This is what you use to be happy, to be of help, to sleep, to be problematic, and anything and everything. It is indispensable. Everything you do requires time. But why is time more than gold? if you lose gold, you can get it back (in value). But if you lose or waste time, you can never ever compensate for it. As Donald Trump (2006, Why We Want You To Be Rich) puts it,

"What you do with your time is a very big subject, because lost time can never be recaptured. Very often, lost money can be regained."

Doing unproductive things robs us of what we could’ve gotten by doing otherwise. You can educate yourself, do something part time, improve your skills, etc., etc.

I am currently reading “Why We Want You to Be Rich” by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. I read business/ personal finance books once in a while because I think they are self development books. True enough because I’ve realized how I’m wasting my time on nonsense things. Let me share an excerpt from the book(page 129): (Please help yourself—get a pen and paper and evaluate yourself)

Review how you spend your time. There are 168 hours in a week (7x24).

Hours spent working ______
Hours spent commuting ______
Hours spent getting ready ______
Hours spent eating ______
Hours spent sleeping ______
Hours spent with family ______
Hours spent on a hobby ______
Hours spent exercising ______
Hours spent getting educated ______
Hours spent relaxing ______
(168)


I answered this. Let me share it to you..


Hours spent working=17 hours- I included household chores, tutoring my nephew and other stuff.

Hours spent commuting=15 hours– a whopping 15 hours! Yikes!

Hours spent getting ready= 12 hours- I don’t even go out everyday.

Hours spent eating= 14 hours- my favorite. haha

Hours spent sleeping= 49 hours- assuming I get 7 hours of sleep everyday, includes naps.

Hours spent with family = I don’t think I can compute this, I stay at home everyday. I think it’s included in the others already.

Hours spent on a hobby= 20 hours- mostly, surfing the net and a little bit of TV.

Hours spent exercising= 1 hour- pathetic. haha

Hours spent getting educated= 20 hours- 12 hours in school & 8 hours doing homework and readings.

Hours spent relaxing= I have no idea. (maybe the missing 10 hours plus in between activities. )

=148/168

Plus, I added..

Hours spent on other activities= 10 hours –including attending church, teaching kids, preparing lessons and attending the Saturday fellowship

TOTAL=158/168

Where has my 10 hours gone? I know these are just approximations. But upon evaluating and re-evaluating my activities, I realized I am wasting too much time on nothing! I can chop my getting ready time. I can do something much better on my hobby time- like writing blogs- which I enjoy and will help me improve my writing skills and will reinforce what I’ve learned from my readings. Or convert some of my hobby time to exercise time. Can I do something about commuting? I live in Cavite and study in Manila. Nothing much? I don’t think so. What are the things that I can do while commuting? Well, I usually read a book—which I don’t advise to others, its bad for the eyes but I just can’t help it! Other things I can do onboard: plan my week, sort thoughts, or a power nap (haha, just don’t snore and keep your mouth shut!) Overall, a lot of my time is being spent unproductively. Things that would bring me nowhere but here (worse, even a few steps back).

Where do you want to be? A year from now? 2 years? Or maybe 5 or 10 years from now? Reading this blog is actually wasting your time if you realized you are like me (wasting time) and not do anything about it. Well, if you are one of those who can manage their time well, kudos to you! I would want to be someone like you. 

How we spend our time now defines who we will be in the future. And I’m not only referring to matters that concern money. If you want to be a good mom—what skills do you need to learn? If you want to glorify God—what should you be doing now? If you want to be wise—what are your plans? The list goes on.

But don’t get me wrong. Relaxing does not equate wasting time. Everything should be done in moderation. We should be good stewards of time.

Explaining further would be redundant. I’ll just be throwing you the question I posed earlier:

"Are the things you do right now bring you closer to your goals? If not, what are the things you need to eliminate? What should be done more?"

Note: Some of my statements here might be influenced by my past readings. If some statements resemble another author’s – its either we realized the same thing or I actually got it from him (without remembering—if this is the case, my apologies). *wink*