Aijaz Ahmad
TIME IS one of the biggest riddles of the universe, poetically depicted as a relentless thief, scientifically explained as the fourth dimension and practically seen as a valuable and limited resource. We have been freed seventy two years ago but didn’t yet forget the period of slavery. More than 95% people of Pakistan are born after 1947. In other words, a boy of 72 years didn’t breathe under subjugation. In fact, it’s become our attitude to remain servitude, we have bound ourselves to remember the memories of slavery. On the way to my office there is a railway crossing and a notice board informing “The gate can be closed for 15 minutes. In case of delay, file a complaint in complaint register kept with gateman. By order of DS (Divisional Superintendent).
I pondered a lot that where the order is and why the order is needed and why I am being told that DS Railways is a lord or has right to order widespread. The text should start with respect and apology rather than “Notice” because the Railways reasoned to waste fifteen precious minutes of my life. But leave, even after half an hour the train has arrived and the gate is open. What is needed to head in complaint register.
But my resentment proved to be temporary and I enjoyed the freedom that the tractor going in front of my car had clearly written on the back of trolley “Horn do Rasta lo” that’s the freedom, no matter how the sound of horns disturb others. The driver of Tractor Trolley is a brave man, he wrote down what he thinks right. Know for sure that cowards like me follow the same law. Some cultured people symbolize it lack of knowledge and pollution of freedom but spitting on streets, spreading dirt on the roads, breaking the line are just a few of the emotions that give a sense of freedom.
At Lahore airport, a UK returned lady asserted on breaking the queue that why should to come Pakistan if queue is observed same as there? This is comic but home truth and slice of life of majority. Remember! Only you can change your life, No one can do it for you. Be the change that you wish to see in the world. We are badly immersed in misuse of time. People give excuses like they do not have time for doing their works. It’s not the thing that they do not have time but they don’t know how to manage time.
Nothing is ours but time is a phrase not for us because we love to kill the time. Pakistan Railways has legally right to waste fifteen minutes for every in/out of trains, arriving late at office is considered of executive style and two to three hours late is a fashion in marriage functions. People use to pass bad remarks and weigh up uncivilized the public rushed on food but the guilt is of host who reasoned to drop sugar level of the guests because of late. Why I am being told that DS Railways is a lord or has right to order widespread?
We are passing through a phase of change. Seventy two years are enough to waste now let’s value our time, use it for our good as well as for the good of others around us because time is the most valuable and precious thing in the word, has given us prosperity and happiness and on the contrary, it also brings sorrow and grief. No one can better realize value of five minutes but a dying person. So, if you waste time, time will waste you. An inch of time is an inch of gold but you can’t buy that inch of time with an inch of gold. “Killing time is not a murder, it is a suicide” suits to those who don’t know the value of time and also not respect the time as they are always involved in useless things, wasting time or doing nothing.
Everyone in the world has 24 hours a day. It depends upon them how they manage their golden 24 hours and how they set their priorities. If we manage our time in a proper and useful way no one can stop us from being a successful person in life. Time is not spending but investment. Ancient Greek philosophy is known by its combination of merely theoretical thoughts and practical approach. The ophrastus understood time as an accident of motion that cannot be stopped or reversed, and he said that waste of time is the most extravagant and costly of all expenses.
—The writer is Assistant Vice President, National Bank of Pakistan, Gujrat.
