I have conducted many polls on the eHappyLife website and written many articles through the years, devoted to the topic of TIME. As with this article, I continue to write about TIME because it always tends to remind me to value my own time in the context of being my most precious asset.
As an example of determining the true value of one's personal time, let's just wonder for a moment what a person like Bill Gates, Paul Allen or Michael Dell, three multi-billionaires would pay to stay alive and healthy for an extra year of their life? I think it would be safe to say that either of these individuals would easily use a couple billion dollars of their fortunes, to pay for an extended year proposition by their Maker. That cool sum would equate to a time value of $5,479,452 a day or $1,369,863 an hour or finally $22,831 a minute. Wow! Now that's what I call a valuable minute! However, without making a point like this, we would never conceive of measuring a minute of our time with such a high value.
The truth of the matter is that one minute of time is just as valuable to each and every one of us every day. Because if any of us had the financial ability and the opportunity to extend our life for a year, we would pony up just about everything we owned to do so. If you are in agreement with this statement, then why shouldn't we value and manage our precious minutes and hours throughout our lives?
The topics for most of the lessons that I write about in this column each Sunday are often triggered by some personal event or news story that occurs during the past week. This week's lesson was triggered by the unfolding news event of Jennifer Wilbanks, the missing nurse and bride to be, who supposedly disappeared while jogging several days before her wedding. An enormous manhunt was formed around Deluth, GA, to find this missing person. The TIME, effort and resources invested by authorities, family members, friends, and concerned volunteers displayed a vivid expression of the caring society that we are blessed with in America. Her parents, relatives and fiance probably devoted every ounce of their energy and every minute of their time during this week to finding her. Then we come to find that everyone involved in this earnest effort was duped by Jennifer as she appeared safe on Saturday, after making up a false story of a kidnapping and finally confessing that the whole event was a hoax to get out of her marriage. The authorities may eventually arrive at an estimate on the amount of taxpayers dollars that were squandered during this manhunt. However, if we used the "true value of the time" of the hundreds or even thousands of people that somehow contributed to this effort, we would be absolutely shocked!
One of the wonderful qualities of human beings is their willingness to devote their time, energy, resources and hard earned taxpayers dollars to assist others in need. I hope that events like the above story will not place a damper on our future emotions to help individuals who are truly victimized. However, you have to wonder what the consequences or punishment should be to an individual like Jennifer Wilbanks, to deter others from making a similar error in judgment. What occurred in this incident can be considered grand larceny of the most precious asset on the face of the earth, the valuable and precious TIME of caring people! Along with the loss of precious time engaged in the manhunt, consider the stress and consequently the days of life that will probably be subtracted from the lives of those that loved Jennifer, thinking that her life may have already ended. It's just an unbelievable story that I couldn't help but write about.
In retrospect, now is as good time as any to analyze and review what's happening to your own precious time-line. How much value do you place on an hours worth of your own time? If you don't place a high value on this scarce and finite resource, it will surely just slip away. Our capitalist system can accurately place a dollar value on just about every object or resource available for sale. We can watch the spot market on oil by the second on CNBC during trading hours. We also can watch the true market value of thousands of publicly traded company stocks; bonds of all types; currencies from around the world; and commodity prices from gold to soy beans. Wouldn't it be great if we were able to view a ticker displaying the true value of our own personal time? When it comes to financial investments, we have developed the markets, technology and systems to measure true value instantly.
Begin thinking about what price you would pay, to add a healthy year to your own life. By doing so, you will determine the true value of your own time. You may begin to guard it from time thieves and make choices to INVEST your precious time wisely and only for the worthiest of causes. Think, Improve and Enjoy Life!