The Time Factor
By Nilofer Sultana
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
It is very aptly remarked that time is money. It is criminal, if not outright sinful, to waste something so precious like time. Those living in the USA believe in this fact but to a questionable extreme. They are literal workaholics. Everyone seems to be busy like a robot working breathlessly from early dawn to nightfall. We can very often spot a person hastily grabbing a leftover piece of bread for breakfast and gulping it down while driving towards his workplace. There is no time for leisurely enjoying the breakfast. People compulsively take up two if not three jobs simultaneously to maintain the lifestyles they have got used to.
At times one feels pity for those who struggle hard to get spacious houses: they sweat and toil to furnish these houses elegantly with expensive furniture and decoration pieces that cost them a fortune. But they can hardly spare a few odd moments to relax on their cushioned sofas. Dead tired, they can just manage to hit their king-size beds, just to wake up in time for their hectic routines ahead. Such over-stretched work schedules leave every one strained and emotionally drained. Being busy round the clock leaves the people with no time to relax and enjoy with their children. They become irritable at the very thought of a busy agenda to be pursued. Human feelings should not be sacrificed for material gains. Via media is always the desirable goal to follow. It is laudable that at banks, malls, hospitals, etc. the time of the customers is not wasted at all.
Once in a post office I had to send a parcel and the number allotted to me was 95. Being a Pakistani, I thought it would take hours to get my job done leaving me with taut nerves in the end. Unbelievably, I walked out of the post office fully satisfied for the quick service provided to me. Most of the jobs in the USA can be done on telephone and Internet, thus saving a lot of precious time of the customers that can be utilized more purposefully.
Now let us view the scenario in Pakistan. There may be a shortage of anything (electricity, gas, exports, medicines) but time is available in super-abundance to be squandered and idled away to the best of anyone’s ability. During the working hours, people are prone to an attitude of idle relaxation. They talk to their friends on phone, read the newspapers and even entertain their guests. Piles of moth-eaten files keep gathering dust much to the frustration of the people. Queues of pensioners keep waiting for endless hours to collect their pensions. People line up for hours to pay their utility bills in the banks. Doing a job promptly or in time is a remote concept. The housewives have plenty of time to gossip and men sleep for hours, in no real hurry to attend to their business or office routines. In simple words, time has no value just like the Pakistani currency. This is a sad state of affairs. On the plus side, people in Pakistan have enough time for each other to share their joys, sorrows and festivities. They can at least enjoy a dinner with a relaxed frame of mind with their family members.
It is the balanced approach towards life and work that is missing both in the East and the West. People in both parts of the world do not follow the golden middle path. We do not have to be work maniacs and we cannot afford to be lethargic and waste something so rare as time. Can we ever forget the age-old maxim ‘Time and tide wait for no one.’ And we all were told in our childhood, all work and no leisure makes Jack a dull boy. Food for thought for everyone.
