The Most Valuable Thing in the World

Time.

Everything else depends on time. Life is measured over the time that we are able to breathe, think and move. Freedom is measured in the time that we have to do what we want to do. Riches are measured in the power they have to spare us big efforts and enjoy things that would otherwise require immense of infinite time for us to make or accomplish.

Time is the only good that cannot be kept intact in a storage room or any sort of container. Of course, we can trade ten hours of our time doing something for some item that would cost us fifty hours to get by our own means. That may be regarded as a way to "buy" time, time that has been accumulated under the form of finished goods or special services. When in our senior years, time shows itself as less abundant than it was. For some, this will present a problem, specially if they would like to double their expected availability of time in order to experience what they couldn't before, in a way similar to the premise of the "Bucket's List" recent movie. Yes, at the end of the party we feel compelled to move more frantically, to dance more songs, to meet those which we didn't yet meet. We don't want the party to end with us still not having enjoyed lots of experiences. Life is measured in the number of interesting events lived, and experiencing anything requires time, there's no such a thing as an instantaneous experience, at least not for us human beings.

The way we "rectify" our ways is largely dealt with in the movie "Groundhog's Day". In the scenario there depicted, the starring character lives a day for innumerable times, stretching his life for several times the average lifespan of a human being. Though what happens if treated in a somehow comical way, there springs a conclusion out of the story, that with enough time we can relearn how to live our life. The lesson that arises form that conclusion is that we need to take advantage of the time we have and explore the better ways to do our things, including how to enjoy little everyday events, how to offer others a smile, how to remove negativity from the emotions we experience, etc. Groundhog's Day shows that we need to live our life with wisdom. And this seems to be the kind of wisdom that anybody can experience or acquire.

There's not an infinite amount of time to enjoy. But we cannot notice it. Some people do not care much about the future. But then, a decision made today can affect the future. When that day about which we didn't care finally comes, we will probably wonder why things seem to be out of control. But they weren't, we just left some circumstances unattended, those which could have had created a better scenario for us to live.