"Buying" Time

They say money can buy only physical things but it cannot buy things that we cannot see. Things like loyalty, trust, happiness, freedom, and love. What about time, can we buy time? I’m not talking about buying time to prolong our lives like the one in the movie In Time. What I mean by buying time here is we don’t have to wait for a long time doing certain things, so that we can have more time attending to other important things, or so we think that they are important.

Not convinced yet? I can give few examples. There is new movie showing in the cinema and you plan to watch it with your best friends. Your friends ask you to buy the tickets first. If you are to go there and queue to get the tickets it will takes you 15-20 minutes top, but if you buy the ticket online you can save the waiting time and it only costs you RM1 extra.

You work in Johor and have a meeting with potential clients in KL. You can drive for 4hours from JB to KL and hope that the traffic is not congested, or you can take a 45minutes flight from Senai to Subang and have more time to prepare yourself before meeting the clients. Of course the flight will cost you more money but it saves more of your time.

I’ll give another proof. Traditionally the wife will do most of the things like cooking, laundry, cleaning and also prepare the kids for school. In the beginning they still can manage with time, but as time passes by they will start complaining to the husband, “I can’t do everything at once la dear, can you find a maid to help me at home?” I’m not saying that this wife is lazy, she has a point there. Have to wake up in the middle of night because the baby is crying, not enough sleep, then have to prepare breakfast before you go to work, again the baby cry have to change the diaper, elder son still sleeping and he is already late for school so mother has to run upstairs and wake him up. It’s crazy!!! If you can pay RM8000 (recent) for a housemaid, then your wife can ask the maid to help with the laundry and cleaning so she will have more time to look after the kids and you.

If that’s the case, then those people with big fat wallets are at advantage don’t you think? One thing we have to keep in mind is The Almighty God is just. Everything comes with a price. You can have all the time you want, but if you don’t know how to manage it there is no different. You spend more time with your family, but do you think you have a quality time with them or everybody just doing their own work? That’s us, we tend to neglect things when we have them and only regret things once they are gone.

“Demi Masa! Sesungguhnya manusia itu dalam kerugian. Kecuali orang-orang yang beriman dan beramal soleh, dan mereka pula berpesan-pesan dengan kebenaran serta berpesan-pesan dengan sabar. (Quran: 103:1-3)”

A.Khairul