CHAPTER SEVEN
TIME! IT’S VALUABLE
When I was little, I followed my mom to the market. As a gift, she bought me a plastic watch. It was a static watch and it never told the time but I valued it. As I grew and began to tell the time, I demanded for a working wristwatch and my dad bought me one. It was so precious that I protected with all that I had. I never knew the value of time keeping then. As far as I was concern, there was no time to keep. I just wore the watch to show my mates I was in a higher class. Owning a wrist watch was a status object.
Now that I’m grown, that concept has changed. I’m increasingly cautious of time especially with the myriad of task that there is to be done in the day.
Every champion is time conscious. We don’t have all the day and we don’t have all the resources. Some resources are time bound. Champions are aware that when a resource is available, they must seize on its availability immediately else it could become unavailable.
Time is an important asset. It has to be managed. No champion strives without having this at the back of his mind. They work with time. There are championship status that only arrive at a particular time in one’s life. Once that time is up, one becomes bigger than that championship status. For example, a ten year old chap may become the best graduating pupil in his primary school. A twenty year cannot return to primary school to try the feet no matter how well he performs. That championship status has passed his time. A twenty year old should be pushing for a degree at the university.
Time is precious. No one has all the time. An athlete doesn’t have all the time in the world to prepare for a race that has a specific dateline. He has to prepare using all the time available prior to the competition. He has to make the best of the time available before the competition.
There are certain time bound achievements. Once the time is past, it will be impossible achieving them. Our body age. A wrestler at 25 will be stronger to challenge for championship than one who is 50. Even if the 50 year old is experienced, time has passed with its strength. He may lack the strength to challenge the younger wrestler.
Footballers have a certain age range in their careers to play. Often, footballers know that all the strength to play and experience is often acquired between ages 20 and 30. Any footballer who wants to make impact or win any award must work hard during this age range as after then, they will not be strong to compete against younger fresher legs.
You don’t want to be considered too big for a position. You have to do what you do with time frame in mind. Time has to be managed. As much as it seems there is so much of it, there is only little of it. All you have is now. You don’t have all the time. You have now to work and walk toward your goal and ambitions. Champions are very much aware of this. They seize on now. They know tomorrow may never come no matter how much time offers tomorrow. All the effect they can make is worth it now! now! and now!
Some persons are given to procrastination and they crash land. The effects they should have made today and be celebrated today and look up to something new tomorrow, they keep it for tomorrow. Sadly when tomorrow arrives, they push it till next tomorrow. Anything worth doing is worth doing now. That influence you can make can be made now.
Death comes knocking any day it chooses. What's saddening isn’t death but it’s not doing what we should do when we were alive. We could do so much now that the opportunity is available. The grave yard is filled with people who never did all they should have done when they had the time to live.
Time in actual sense doesn’t exist. Time is relative. The relativity of time is what makes it never exist. We often think we have it only to discover it’s not there. When students prepare for exams, they often feel they have perhaps a month to prepare, but before they know it they find themselves in the eve of the examination and they ask how time flies.
Time should be used wisely. We don’t have to rush through important actions that should have imparted life positively. As much as time is limited, we still need to take our time to think over making certain valuable decisions in our lives. These decisions are often important. When we want to make a choice about where we intend to go or what new direction that will make a difference in your life and society.
We often reach junctions in life where we are left with options to choose. As much as there is a tendency to follow the path everyone is taking, it will be good you think and consider over and over again the optional routes available. Many persons have made mistakes in their lives rushing to make decisions when they could have spent more time to think about the directions. Some just follow the crowd and end up unfulfilled.
As a young graduate from high school, I had the challenge of choosing which course to study at the university and which university to attend. At a point I was confuse that I just accepted what came. It was only after entering school that I had regrets. I should have being patient to think through.
As much as there is no time, there is time. We need to know time in its context and manage it wisely to enable it benefit us.