Albert
Einstein once said and I quote “the most precious things in life are not those
you get for money”. What is the most precious thing in your life? Let’s have a
second to think. I believe each of you in this room have different answer. I
would divide precious into two categories: 1. Something that is visible and 2. Something
that is invisible. If you asked me what the most precious things in life, I will
choose something that is visible but if I waste it become invisible, that is
time. Even Steve Job mentioned that “My favourite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time." I had posted the same question, “What
is the most precious thing in your life?” in Facebook. Some says family, some
says love, some says health, one of them say inner peace and all kinds of
different answer goes on. But, to my surprised, none of them answered time.
So, why time is the
most precious thing in my life? Let me tell you the importance of time (draw timeline).
Each of the line represent 10 years. Time have three dimensions: Past, Present,
Future. From birth till death, the years in between are time where you are
living. The moment you live in this earth, there will be a day of a moment that
you will die. You wouldn’t know when your death comes. On 17 November 2017 is
the day I had attended a friend’s younger sister funeral. That is the moment I
realise that I had witness someone’s life from young as a child grow into adult
getting married, and die due to complication of birth. I would say giving the
portion of your time to someone is the greatest gift ever.
Ask yourself how do you use your
time? Do you use your time for yourself by reading, writing, explore or
research? Do you use your time to take care of health, to love, to build
legacy, or to have passion and find purpose in life? From the scale 1-10, ask
yourself are you happy with the time that you spend every single day? Is it
fulfilling? From the most precious thing in my life, I break down it into my four
precious in life: Love, Health, Passion, and Legacy.
When comes to love, how much
time do you spent with your family, your friends and your love one? Do you bring your parents or your grandparents
to holiday out of your pocket money? Do you bring them out to dine on special
day? Or do you procrastinate your time by telling them you are busy, you don’t
have time to go back to visit them. I can’t trade them off for anything. I
already done everything of the above. I had bring mom and my grandmother for
vacation. I always treat them for dinner especially on special day. It is precious
moment to spend time with them. You will realized how much they had aged. Start
loving them before you regrets.
At times, I felt myself old because
most of my time spent at workplace from Monday till Friday and sometimes on
Saturday. My job mainly spend most of being a project tester and output of the
result is not per my expectation. This had make me felt so sick and drains off
my energy, and motivation to continue. Dilemma comes. Invitation to go for
hiking on Saturday. I’m supposed to try out to work the project on Saturday.
That’s the moment I decided to trade of with hiking and reignite back my
passion and improve my health. With all the sweats, laughter with hiking
friends and multiple leech bites on the leg area, it is worth the time I had to
gain happiness.
Also, with the time you had-you able to impact and touch people’s
life or even build a legacy. Just like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad, he had live
his life to the fullest. He spent his time to study as a doctor, to become
minister until become the second time prime minister of his country, spent time
with his family during the period of his retirement from being the fourth prime
minister and even take care of his health by having proper diet and morning
walk. He had become the tiger of the economy. Even everyone in this world
eyeing on him. My legacy? Mine is much simpler- I am the first grandchildren
graduated from university and having decent work in an insurance company. Other
purest contributions, to touch people life is being a volunteer in the
community.
Hence, the
most precious thing in our life is time that gave us more precious moments in life. Time and tide wait for no one. So,
waste your time wisely. If not now, when? Period.
