Time is not Money

“You need to be on time for our meetings.”

“Dov, it’s no big deal. I was 15 minutes late. And anyway, I thought you were easygoing?”

“Janice, I am. But we all have a lot to do, and you are wasting all of our time.”

“Chill out. Should I get the supervisor involved?”

“You can get the CEO involved for all I care. At work, my time is their time as well. They don’t fight me on this. I advise you not to fight me on this either.”

Looking pretty startled she replied, “Sorry, Dov. It won’t happen again.”

If there is one lesson I can learn about working in Israeli hi-tech, it’s that time is far more precious than money. Never believe anyone foolish enough to tell you that time is money. It’s not. Time is far more important.

Unlike money, time is in limited supply. Money is something we can spend, lose, misplace, and then get back. Time is irreplaceable. Every moment that passes is gone for good. We can choose to spend money or save it, but time is an involuntary expenditure. It runs out no matter what we choose to do, or what we choose not to do.

Maybe that’s the key to understanding the physical world. These rules don’t apply beyond this existence. In the next world there is eternity, and infinity. Here there are limits.

With those limits come choices. With those restrictions comes a sense of urgency that can drive us to greatness.

What a lesson Hashem is teaching us. By taking a look at the world around us we can begin to understand what Hashem is instructing us:

1. There is a limited window to make the most of a certain opportunity.

If you sell record players, you might have had a great run during the 1970s, but today you will be hard pressed to dominate the market. Even today, if you sell mp3 players, you might have had a good run, but today there are other options.

Every business has a limited lifespan to succeed, and in order to get the most out of it you have to take full advantage when the time arrives. You also need to see what is in demand right now and take advantage of that particular window of opportunity now.

That means that when our children are young and they want to spend all their time with mommy and daddy, we need to know that this is a special time. One day they will want to share their time with school, friends, career, and their own family. So long as this window of opportunity of making an impact on our kid’s lives and vice versa is open, we need to seize the moment.

It also means that at different stages of our life there are different opportunities to serve Hashem with greater vigor. When we are young and single, the mitzvah of personal holiness is the great opportunity. When we get married, it’s shalom bayit. As we get older learning and teaching become the great opportunities.

2. Even if you are at the top of your field, it always ends.

All of the most powerful entrepreneurs on earth have one thing in common: they retired. After 30, 40, 50 years in the game their body couldn’t continue at the pace required and they went on to do other things. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how high you climb, the last day comes and it’s all over.

The same is said for all of us. There has never been anyone who has lived forever. Everybody dies. Everybody stops serving Hashem directly in this physical world. The treasure trove of mitzvot in this existence closes, and we can take no more precious jewels of merit with us to Hashem. No matter how much you advance, the end comes and the journey continues somewhere else.

The Chovos HaLevavot warns us that one of the sins we fall into is the blind assumption that we will live forever. We know we won’t, but we never take our death into account when making choices we throughout our life. Time, at least in our minds, becomes unlimited and therefore of little value.

We often force Hashem to do the last thing He would ever want to do to wake us up: give us a life threatening experience to understand this.

Trust me on this one – don’t let it come to that.