“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” Henry Ford
It is known that the concept of time is a gift from the Egyptians. We have been using this concept since 4000 B.C.’s. Last week I mentioned how little time we have and how valuable it is. Today I want to talk about, what kind of things there are ready to steal our precious time. In fact, we can count so many things about it. Some of them can be controlled by us, some of them, unfortunately, cannot.
Let’s start with time thieves that actually we can control. At the top of the list of the time thieves, there is a star, television. Even we called it the idiot box, we have loved it and watched so often. Over time, TV has gone through some changes, screens of TV are various these days. It entered into our computers and smartphones. You can say that you do not watch TV programs anymore. But there are some applications like Netflix provides you with abundant kinds of TV series and movie content, and digital platforms that give you the convenience of watching the programs, without the time limitations can also be threatening your time at least as TV. The standard television concept in our minds has changed, but it continues to steal our time, and to be honest, it is crueler than it was in the old times.
Spending too much time to play any kind of games. I will mention about video games since they attract more and more people every year. Recent games have an incredible reality that we can play them like we are the star of a movie. In fact, with virtual reality, we have begun to feel like we were in another world. But in essence, playing games is a concept that wastes our time in our everyday life very seriously. The current world is telling that video games are improving intelligence and encourage young people to enter the game world every day. It is absolutely necessary to put a time limit, otherwise, it will turn out to be the danger that makes our time go very fun but makes us numb.
Social media. I can not finish counting the benefits of social media. It’s a concept that keeps us in touch with our friends, family or colleagues. But the biggest culprit of the acts, like people walk and write or don’t look in the face when they are talking to someone, is also, social media. There are even some people who communicate by sending a message to their friends in the next room. We use technology so wrong and allow it to make us lazy and steal a large amount of our time.
Friends who are time thieves. It would probably not be wrong to say that some people are using our time, less efficiently than the others. Do you have a friend who holds you on a phone for over an hour for a very simple matter? Do you have an example of a friend who drops by unexpectedly and keeps you up all night? Most probably you have your own examples. It is important to say to these friends that “your time was precious”.
There are also time thieves which are not in our control. Traffic, illness, out of date instruments, slow operation systems, etc. It would be good to try to avoid them as much as possible. Some precautions would be effective like spending less time on traffic by planning our time, having good nutrition, do not share the same environment with the people who have respiratory infections or using leverage tools in our daily lives like a faster PC, easy to use a vacuum cleaner or practical goods.
It is very important to raise our awareness of the things to steal our irrevocable time in daily life. I think the worst thieves are these time thieves. Learning to cope with them and using time more efficiently will push us forward in life. What are the issues that have stolen from you in your daily life? Keep your time well, see you next week…