Life, Time and Value

For a while, I was planning to pen down something on how we can enhance our life experience. How to bring clarity on what we want and what can help us achieve it. Are we seeking the right thing or just trying to copy from what others have got? Here I have tried to explain a few dimensions of our life, which play key roles in making it an amazing one. You know, most of the times, it takes just one more idea to bring a massive change in one’s life. You may already have so many ideas, it may require just one more, which will drastically change the way you look at your life, which will in turn change the way you will lead the rest of your life. May be in a phenomenal way.

First of all, I would like to thank you for spending your precious time reading this piece of text. Time is very limited for all of us. You can have more money, but you cannot have more time. You can give away some amount of money easily for a purpose, but you will think several times, if someone asks for a day from you. So, it is now a binding on me to give you something in return to make your time worthwhile.

I think we all agree that time is valuable. But does the time itself comes with a value? You will easily come to know the answer if you just stay at home without doing anything. So, time is an essential ingredient in the process, but acts just as a platform for us and the value is generated upon that. It is like petrol, a highly inflammable substance, which is of course valuable, but it requires oxygen to generate heat energy. In other words, petrol has no value in absence of oxygen. Similarly, the value of the time spent will depend on how much value you are able to bring to the marketplace in that span of time. Is it possible to generate a value of 100 bucks in a day? Oh yes, it is! So many people are able to do that. Is it possible to generate a value of 1,000 bucks a day, 10,000 bucks? All possible, that is why there are so many people that are earning in millions.

Now, the question is, how do you bring value to the marketplace? The answer is very simple, you can do that only with what you have! You cannot generate value with what you do not have. In old times when there was no common currency, what the people used to do? They would bring what they had to the marketplace and in return they would get back equivalent value in terms of what they did not have. So, you need to know what you have. It is very unfortunate that many people, throughout their lifetime, never realise or give importance to what they have. Rather they become more concerned, often paranoid with what others have and they themselves do not have. That is nothing but sickness. Do not judge yourself with what you do not have, rather have the desire to achieve them.

Every human being has got something within themselves to offer to the world. It can be skill, money, patience, compassion, devotion, physical strength, courage, or anything. Find out what you have and use that effectively. You also have to find out the best usage of it, which will bring maximum value to the marketplace. Just using it in some way or other may not yield anything great. Remember, just because you are doing a lot more, does not essentially mean you are getting a lot more DONE. Do not confuse movement with progress. It has to be consciously decided what you will do with what you have. You may even go for acquiring something new for the purpose, but that is not always easy. Most of the time that comes with a price.

Now, you have time, you also know what you can offer. But is that all? Can you generate value with these as is? You may not, without a proper environment. You will need a suitable environment where you can unfold the possibilities. How do we get such an environment? Let's try to understand what we are referring to as the environment. Generally, it is our surroundings. But if we try to analyse it in detail, we will find it is not only external, It can be internal too. It is actually a mix of life energies of our own and those around us. It also includes different forces of nature. The internal chemistry, i.e. our thoughts, emotions, desires, actions, etc. are our internal environment and ideally, we should be able to handle that ourselves (I will try to write another article on this process). The external environment involves other parties. How do we handle these factors? I think that is where the relationship comes into play and it depends on how are we related to those factors.

We are living in a very uncertain world. We are all unique human beings, there are no two persons exactly same to each other. Every moment in our individual lives are also unique. Our experience of life is also unique. So, it is not possible to copy the path followed by a successful person and steer our life to fulfilment. That is why it is of paramount importance that we nurture the external relationships which will help us attain a certain level of stability in our lives. The more stability we have lesser will be our worries. Some of these relationships are natural which we need not nurture consciously, like our relations with the trees. It will go on without much efforts. But the relationships with the people around us, at least with those who play key roles in bringing the required stability, must be nurtured with consistent efforts. That requires active participation from both sides. This applies even to the biological relations to some extent.

We all have built a so many relationships in our lives till now. But are they all exist today? Most of them are not. Think of all your school friends. Are you still in touch with all of them? When you were in school, you might not have thought of getting separated like you are today. But life does not happen that way. So, it takes some amount of certainty and consistency for a relationship to survive. Certainty, that we can rely on each other, that we watch each other’s back, and a lot of things like that. And that is not only for a day or two, but consistently as long as we are together. The day either the certainty or consistency is compromised, the relationship starts falling apart. It is just a matter of time, that it will cease to exist unless it is renewed on time.

There is a nice term used to refer to these certainty and consistency, Loyalty. We use this in many contexts in life, loyal to your spouse, your friends, your customers, your employees, your employer, your team, your job, your goals, your own self, and many other things? So, loyalty is the most important or the key factor for a relationship to continue. So, in your workplace the day you start feeling your employer or the organisation is not going to look after your needs, that becomes a compromise on the relationship. Similarly, if you, through your behaviour, show you are less concerned about the organisation's objectives, or hardly bothered about the overall KPIs, that amounts to a compromise on the relationship, which indicates you are no more interested in continuing with that relationship. It works both ways without exception. But the best part is the compromise can be stopped and the relationship can be renewed if proper attention is paid on time. But why such compromise happens in any relationship? There is in fact, a bigger why, i.e. we need to understand WHY we need a particular relationship in the first place.

It is easier to find WHAT we do in a relationship to keep it going and HOW we do that. However, most of the times, either we do not enquire why we do that, or it is not easy to find the answer for. But once we have that, and if that ‘WHY’ is strong enough, that relationship will thrive. No matter what, if you know why you need that relationship, you will find out the answers to the other two questions, i.e. What to do and How to do. You will definitely stop any compromise to happen. This is a very simple concept that hardly requires any explanation. Does it? So, find that WHY for your relationships, if not for all, at least for the ones you care for and you see a compromise happening. Then if you really want that relationship going, you will do whatever best you can in whatever best possible manner.

So, you have the time, and you know what you can offer to the world, you also have got the right environment in place. What else? Nothing, but give your best possible performance on the platform that time has given to you. If you perform extremely well, you will automatically thrive. Let's now look deeper into what are the common behaviours of high performers. There are four distinct psychological traits that keep up the high performance.

1. Resilience – They accept the current situation in its actual form. Rather than dwelling on problems, they focus on solving it and move on. No matter how big a problem is, their natural tendency is to keep it aside and find the way out of the current situation to be back on track and keep up the chance of achieving the goal.
2. Live in the moment – Before they start anything, they might spend hours in planning the activity. But once they are into it, they just focus on the process to finish the current step rather than always keeping a eye on the goal. In yogic practices there is a saying, if you have one eye on the goal, you have only one eye to find your way. It's inefficient!
3. Responsibility – They do take advices from many people for finishing a task or achieving a goal. But the final decision to implement the advice is up to them. They take full responsibility of their own actions, even though that was based on an advice from someone else. They never pass the responsibility of their failures to others.
4. Humility – However much they have achieved, they never feel the pride of that achievement, they have no feeling of superiority. They keep their foot very much on the ground. Because they know that previous achievements do not make them naturally deserve any future success. They have to achieve every new success afresh.

Let's summarise here! We all have our portion of time in this life. It is up to us how we use it and how much value we generate. So, know yourself, unleash all your potentials. Know what you have that can be offered to the world. Use it effectively to bring maximum value for yourself and the marketplace. Give your best performance at any given opportunity. I am sure when you reach the end your life, you will leave a fulfilling legacy behind. Let me know if I could generate any value for you here. Thank you!

Disclaimer: The views shared in this article is completely based on personal observation and understanding, not intended to hurt or promote anyone!

PS: This article can also be viewed in Medium