Power of Choice – Using the Greatest Gift of Life – TIME
There is a persistent lie, a lie that has been perpetuated for centuries almost and to which almost every human being has fallen prey.
WEALTH – wealth comes in many avatars and it has many forms. However, to equate wealth almost exclusively with money in its various forms is not just wrong…it’s perverse.
There is no wealth greater than time and leisure. It’s the wealth of time which when used to its potential, results in the greatest gifts known to mankind. When one has the luxury of time and the freedom to allocate or use in any way one likes that one has true wealth.
Perhaps, this was sensed by the odd individual here and there and understood by the truly gifted. They guarded it most zealously, refusing to fall prey to the newly created god called money.
Then came along those who knew how to hack people’s minds and one among them coined a phrase that seemed to find its way into the consciousness of every living human being…’Time is money’. He won…and humanity lost.
Time is not money, time is life! And it is the most valuable thing a human being has. Can there be anything more valuable than life? Anything? Yet, he can be easily manipulated into giving it up for a loaf of bread and sometimes even less.
In a world where money has become the only means of exchange, money does have a role to play and that must be acknowledged. It helps one to buy that loaf of bread that one needs to sustain life. One needs a little more for clothes, a roof, medicines, education and then still a little more and then more still, and more, yet more and more and more and more…
And then comes a time when that more doesn’t know where to stop…instead of man consuming things, things consume man. Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the wheel for their most basic needs but there are many who need not be…yet are! They are poorest who have enough but feel the need for more and more and more…
Time is the greatest ‘gold mine’ that every individual has access to. If a man learns to marshal his time and uses it to observe, learn, experiment and create, there is little that can be beyond his reach. And, what does he do? He sells it for next to nothing. And, if for any reason, he is not able to make enough money, he merely manages to run himself down, feel worthless or worse, gets into depression.
Any human being who allows himself to be valued by the money he has or earns, has fallen prey to one of the greatest viruses to have attacked the human mind.
It takes vision, courage and the will of a mountain stream to choose where to go, how to go and whether to gurgle and laugh while he is going…or to become moribund in a pool of beliefs where his essence begins to rot…
Humanity’s collective fate has suddenly showered a gift, deceptively packed as a misfortune or challenge. The current coronavirus (Covid-19) situation is the gift that’s packaged as a massive challenge. It’s a gift because suddenly most of us cannot or do not need to do those things that kept us totally absorbed – earning a livelihood. Today we have time – free time! It’s a golden opportunity to do those things that we always wanted to do or whose pull we felt but put away for some future date. Well, that date is here.
And, it’s time for us to begin to date ourselves…our inner selves. Who knows what wealth some among us will discover.
Choose carefully and choose well!
Rajesh Kanoi (rajyogi)
Email –rkanoi@hotmail.com
