Time [Abdessalami]

Some people ignore the importance of time though they can easily repeat lots of proverbs and sayings showing the impact that Time has on our life. When they talk about time, they praise its precious value. Besides, they may give you some advice such as not to waste time unnecessarilly because "Time is like a sword if you don't cut it, it will cut you" and so forth and so on.

However postponing is a reality in our daily life. The concept of time thus became double faceted. First, the expressed side praising time and its precious value. Second, the practical side which is completely drifting astray. That's to say that all of us know the importance of time, yet most of us don't just do anything to exploite it well, to practice what one preaches. Therefore there is a sort of duality in our life about time: two divergent views, theory and practice. We speak well about time but when time comes to practice we forget everything. We thus aren't aware of what we utter.

Time is a double edged sword. It depends on your manipulation of it in the battle for success in your daily activities. Most of the time the sharpest side is used but the brain and hand using it makes it for or against the person in possession of it. If you held it tight and used it effectively, it would help you fulfill your goals but if you missused it, you would be hurt a lot! Nothing is more harmful than time when you made it turn aginst you by wasting it.

In practice this concept of time is almost absent. People like to spend their times ideling just doing nothing. Jubran Khalil Jubran once said that the hands which make thorns are far more better than lazy ones. Like postponing, Laziness then embodies the carelessness of people vis à vis Time. It tortures and eventually kills it. Laziness is the tool used as an alternative to torture and kill time. Yet time seems wiser when it just revenges in silence.

Lazy people get their harvest earlier than the others. They suddenly discover that time has thrown them in oblivion whereas hardworking people, who used to respect the importance of time and do their utmost not to waste it, got their opulent part of the harvest. It doesn't mean that we have to kill ourselves trying not to waste everysecond. That speed is not part of the game. The true meaning of exploiting or using your time effectively is to do the first things first. To do something Slowly is not a problem but you should be steady and regular if you want to reach the summit of success.

Can we say then that success depends entirely on time? It is clear now that time has to do with our existence as a whole not only the temporary trying moments we endure for success. Our conception of time is a matter of habit. If you take time seriously in your life you would never waste it even if you look like doing so. However if you are used to underestimate it, nothing would change your mind even failure. Proverbs and sayings have shown that people were aware of the ability of time to interfere with our own "destiny".

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
Early to bed and early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Haste makes waste!
More haste, less spead.
Good and quickly seldom meet.
A stitch in time saves nine
Take time by the forelock
Slow and steady wins the race
Never say die.

What did they say about Time ?
- "How noiseless falls the foot of time!"
  William Shakespeare
- "Time will explain it all.
  He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks."
  William Shakespeare
- "We take no note of Time
  But from its loss."
  Edward Young
- "Be ruled by time, the wisest counselor of all."
  Plutarch
- "He who flies at the right time can fight again."
  Samuel Butler
- "A day is a miniature eternity."
  Ralph Waldo Emerson
- "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
  Thoreau
- "One always has time enough, if one will apply it well."
  Goethe
- "Day after day a weary waste of hours."
  Shelley

The Meditation Island