Short Story: Time is Money

"An old man's advice to a rich man on importance of each and every second of time for self improvement and attaining perfection."

Once upon a time there was a rich man. Since inception of his business he was trying hard, all day long, to grow his business further. He was very ambitious, hard worker and had developed ‘never give up’ attitude in himself. Thus, he visited foreign countries and added new clients. With time, he had emerged as symbol for success. He had pleasing personality, was every inch a gentleman. He was kind but disciplined. He was very logical and was in habit of making any decision after considering and evaluating all facts and figures. He knew ins and outs of all affairs. This satisfied not only him but also people who came under influence of his decision.

One day, after noticing that he was getting late for office, at a sudden, he started driving faster than usual. As a result, an old man was within an ace of being run down by his speedy car. It shocked both. He stopped his car and quickly moved to that old man. After confirming with him that he was safe and sound, he said, “Are you also running out of time, couldn’t you wait for a while?” Old man replied,” I waited here for more than ten minutes, just to cross the road, but I noticed that all were in hurry, driving very fast, then, I saw you, far from a distance, you were driving slowly enough for me to cross the road safely, in fact, I did it, but you accelerated up at a sudden, it shocked me.” The explanation by poor man left that rich man sadder but wiser. He didn’t speak further. He drove his way to office.

He got in office an hour late. He had to address all his folks. He asked to arrange a meeting. In meeting, first of all, he discussed result of anonymous survey, concerning employee benefits and welfare. Shockingly, only half of population had participated in that survey. However, he listened to all their problems patiently and gave a solid confirmation to solve their problems. Then he spoke further, “Dear All, I would like to share an incident, which happened with me while driving my way to office.” Then he told about the incident.

“Dear Folks, now it’s your time to learn from this incident as I did.” he continued, “This incident talks about two things which really can change our life. First is about impact of deviation in sample size and second about time. All right, tell me how many of you vote during elections.”

Half of the population raised their hand.

“Hmm, so others are below eighteen!” He exclaimed.

Folks laughed. He continued. “This is what I wanted to tell you from this incident, as you know, for that old man, all drivers on road were a population while people driving at fast pace were constituting their own sample size. Meanwhile people driving at low pace constituted yet another sample size. The old man was taking care not to get in, within an ace of fast pacers. But, I broke the rule and this accident happened. I deviated myself from a specific sample size to another sample size. It caused disturbance in stability and common perception of that old man. Are you getting, what I want to tell you?” He asked.

Some nodded, some shook their head in affirmation, and some said yes, some didn’t response.

He continued, “Similarly, we all professionals, the educated persons form a specific sample size of a population. We all together constitute the population of a democratic country. Here in this country, opinion and view of each and every citizen is of utmost importance, when it comes to growth and prosperity of country. Each citizen can demonstrate its opinion by voting the type of leader he chooses through election system. In this way, there will be immense stability and calmness in society if each and every citizen’s opinions are considered and regulated. But there is always a pitfall in this election system just like an ideal machine.”

“What is that sir?” asked few people from the population of two hundred plus employees.

“Input equals to output; this is what an ideal machine is defined as. Similarly, in this system, even if a single individual deviates himself from a sample size, it will cause imbalance, instability and chaos. Well, this can happen, just because of absence of an individual, there is always a chance of disaster or system failure if an entire sample size is deviated from the population. This is what happening not only in our company but also in our country. When, you all were asked to vote, only fifty percent of population participated. Major part of population who missed voting, they fall in group of youngsters. I am quite sure these people don’t even vote during elections in country.

Thus, when all people are not inputting their hundred percent efforts that can be simply done just by voting, you cannot expect to get hundred percent output by any system, even science has proved this. I am very sure if each and every individual casts its vote not only in company but everywhere, there will be always a better system of management because, lesser the deviation from sample size, better the population with thoughts and ideas. Hence, better the ideas, better the management, better the execution, finally better the nation will be.”

“That means single vote of mine can control corruption, violence and instability in our society!” anyone stated with curiosity.

“Exactly, you are a number, a figure, who constitutes a population. If you are missed during count, it disfigures exact population count. Similarly, if you don’t vote, it does affect the system, and when large numbers of samples of a population don’t mark their ballot, it affects the whole system adversely. Country’s population count starts from an individual’s count. It is you, an individual. You are building blocks of whole nation. If you are not strong, irresponsible and corrupt, how can you even think of a nation being strong, devoid of any pitfall and corruption? It is you, who can make a nation strong.” He said.

There was a pin drop silence in the meeting hall.

After few seconds, he broke the silence, “Fine, we are running out of time and it reminds me of other thing, which I have to tell you. It is all about time. As we constitute a nation, similarly, time constitutes our entire life; these moments are building blocks of our life. If we don’t use time wisely, we waste our life. If you don’t put your right effort, at right time, then you will have to put extra effort in extended period of time. This extended period of time could be used for other activities, provided if you had managed that time in a better way and put right effort at right time, but since you missed that, at present you will have to compensate that wastage of time by putting extended hours from your leisure life.”

“What if we increase our speed and reduce our time in order to escape from putting extended period of time from our leisure time?” asked someone with a jaunty smile.

“Then same thing would happen to you that happened to me today morning.” He replied instantly.

All laughed.

He continued, “You can increase your speed, only when you are highly skilled and perfect. Perfection is not developed over a night; again it requires persistence and consistent practice in extended period of time. Once you are a perfectionist after putting hard work and great time, you can think of driving faster to reduce your time. When you are skilled, you can amaze others by accomplishing a task in least time, but ‘haste makes waste’ will come into picture if you are not managing time and putting all your efforts at last moment, it will only cause an accident.

Life is all about time management, if you are master in time management, you can think of accomplishing remarkable tasks in your life. At present, what you are, is result of utilization of your time in past. How you utilize your time today; will determine your future. If you haven’t utilized your previous time properly, then at present, to get par with other people, you will have to utilize more time for self growth; after all, time is money.”

All applauded, meeting got over.