时间的价值_The_Value_of_Time.docVIP

The Value of Time时间的价值 1. A proverb says Time is money. This means that every moment well-spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully used, it will either produce some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our abilities so as to make us able to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is changed into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time remember this; let them remember that an hour spent wrongly is equal to the loss of a banknote; and that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they waste any part of their time. 2. Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of killing oneself. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the total sum of the days and of the hours we live. A day or an hour wasted is therefore so much life lost. Let us bear this in mind that it’s a crime to waste time. 3. There is a third consideration that will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the term over which our life extends, we shall find about fifteen or twenty years for us to do active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. Know the true value