5 Days Already!

Well, happy new year!

I earnestly wish that by the time this year ends, you'd find it a truly happy one for you.

A lady standing near me gasped this morning, "Gosh, five days have already gone out of 2022. So soon! How did this happen?"

"Dey there!" I said to her.

Like so many of us, she has started again—a foolish journey to waste another year.

We are reminded by Michael Altshuler, “The bad news is time flies; the good news is you’re the pilot.” Yes, you're in the cockpit of 2022. What exactly are you going to do?

You see, we often run out of time, not because we don’t have enough of it, but because we think we have more than enough of it and that's a fallacy. God isn't wasteful. He doesn't give more than enough of anything; He gives us enough. Check out what He did with his manna provision for the Israelites during their journey to the Promised Land.

Just as some of them wasted the manna and angered God, so do many of us waste the time He has given us. And He is angry. He let's us be poor!

Get this straight: we are often more conscious of losing money than we are of losing time, yet, literally, time is the most vital ingredient for making money. You know what earns interest on deposits? Time!

Managing time properly is an important skill for all professionals.

The wise King Solomon showed he understood this when he declared in Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 11, “There is a right time for everything...and everything is appropriate in its own time.” This is quite apt. Try to do the right thing at the wrong time, and you miss it; try to do the wrong thing at the right time, and you also miss it all!

I often take a dig at my wife when she habitually looks up at the wall clock in our bedroom and gasps, “Oh my God! Time has gone!”

I would say to her, “Time went nowhere. It is you who got lost and just found yourself."

You see, time is very uncompromising—it moves on while we dither, making procrastination the costliest human habit ever. Have you ever sat down to audit how you use your every twenty-four hours of the day? The daily manna God gives you? As they say, if you do not take control, someone or something else will take control of your time.

The greatest abuse of today is its underuse by the majority of us. Every today is the most wasted day of the week. John Mason says when people kill time, they're actually committing suicide, and that's true.

Here we are at 2022. Whether we grow or remain where we are or retrogress depends entirely on how we mine 2022. It's not about continuing to dream. It's about taking action now! Why is it that sometimes we wake up from a dream when it is getting interesting? God wakes us up because He created us for action, not to revel in dreams. Understand that the intensity of a decision to take an action wanes with time. The longer you wait to act, the more uncertain it gets that you will ever take action.

I have since learned that postponed action quickly gains interest. When you carry forward what you should do today, it costs you more to execute tomorrow. When you further postpone the action, it develops compound interest. I consider doing nothing a very expensive way to live. Sooner or later you will not only account for all the time you have wasted, you will also pay for it, one way or the other, and regrets will make it worse for you.

And some of us remain poor because we're waiting for the right time. Here's the news: right time came and went. You didn't recognise it. So quit waiting for the right time. It is actually already here again in disguise. As things stand, now is the right time for you!

I prophesy that some of us will blow 2022 because we're hanging around the wrong people. Get away from people who only talk and do nothing else. They will wear you down, eat away your time, and leave you poor.

You know what? Some common sayings about time which many of us believe to be true do not help matters. In my book, Keys to Professionalism, I dump them straight in the trash can:

• “Time is not our friend.” So who or what is? Wasting it doesn’t make time our enemy. It makes us our own enemy.

• "Time is not in our favour.” This is another dangerous cliché. The greatest gift God ever gave us after salvation is time. We're extremely favoured with time.

• “We don’t have time.” This, again, is a blatant lie. Everyday God offers us a fresh start with twenty-four hours. What we don’t have, and shouldn’t have, is wasted time.

• “Time is against us.” No, time is always for us! Without time what can we do? Time is our friend.

• “Please, save time.” Wrong counsel! You cannot save time; you either use it or waste it.

• “Time will tell.” Not true! It is the use of time that tells, not time itself. When we use time well, it tells on the bottom line. When we don't use time well, it also tells on the bottom line.

Why anybody will call these wise sayings puzzles me. Let me leave you with some of the Characteristics of Time:

• You can buy or sell a watch, but you cannot buy or sell time.

• As precious as it is, time cannot be given as a gift. Everyone must keep theirs.

• Although time can be measured, it is intangible and invisible, the reason we so wantonly abuse it. I say in that book that our use of time is probably the best judge of who we are.

• Time cannot be stored for future use.

• It is not subject to the forces of demand and supply—it is an inelastic commodity.

• It cannot be slowed or accelerated—time has no brake pedal, and it cruises on one gear only.

• It is always needed and apparently insufficient.

Given its subtle characteristics, we must consciously devise strategies to put this essential resource to work to our advantage in this new year.

(This article is Culled from my two books, Keys to Professionalism and Take That Action! Order your copies)