As a kid growing in 90s, one of the most inseparable part of our schooling was this subject on ‘Moral Science’ which while felt unnecessary then but today feels like the most important ingredient of overall personal growth and character building. Spread across several years, it touched upon some of the key facets of a rewarding life, internally and externally. One of them was Time & Value.
Why this line of thought now? Because due to something imperceptible lately, I realized that while this is a shade that’s been ingrained into my subconscious for decades, there are times when either I trip on it or I get extremely uncomfortable if someone else errs on it, mostly knowingly. Somehow, over decades, in society, the tacit value of relationships has gone down substantially and there is a sense of shallowness that has crept-in the very way people engage with each other. Somehow it has become acceptable to not find time for relationships and still call them being valued. This is an anti-thesis to the entire logic of how it should be in a well-meaning world. In a well-meaning world, we attempt to understand people by investing in them and then bet long term on them. The only logical explanation of this aberration could be the fact that maybe people are no longer sure whether if the aforementioned relationship is for keeps or not. Maybe they do not have the concept of ‘leap of faith’ anymore wherein at times we do not have the full journey mapped ahead of us. And in my opinion that quest is the wonderful thing about the journey. What fun in knowing everything about someone before travelling together? Some journeys are more about the road than the destination.
Nevertheless, circling back to the original chain of thought, however busy one is, it is important to find time for those who we value. Life is all about our people and the choices we make for them. We should thus choose our people carefully and then keep choosing them every single day.