The Commodity of Time
Imagine you have a bank account that receives a deposit of $86,400 every morning. At the end of the day, whatever money is left is confiscated by the bank. You can’t carry any of it over with you to the next day, and you can’t draw money from future days. Each day you have $86,400, no more, no less.
What would you do with that money each day?
I think most of us would probably set our most earnest efforts against spending it all every day. You have a real account just like that in your life – it’s called TIME.
Every morning, you are credited with 86,400 seconds to use as you like. Every night, when you go to sleep, your account is cleared. You can’t carry over seconds to the next day. You can’t borrow seconds from future days. You either use them or lose them each day.
How valuable is that time? Well, to understand the value of …
ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
ONE WEEK, ask a farmer after an early frost.
ONE DAY, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
ONE HOUR, ask the mother waiting for her son’s plane to land.
ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
You must live in the present on today’s deposit of time. Invest it every day to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today, every day.
YIS,
Gavain McDonald
Scoutmaster, Troop 1000, Plano