Time a valuable asset.
There is an old Chinese proverb that as a gardener I really appreciate “A gardener’s footsteps are the best fetiliser” in other words to promote maximum healthy growth in our plants they need our time and input.
I think this proverb also applies to our role as parents, to enable our children to grow well, healthily and joyfully they need our love, time and input.
For centuries we have seen gold and now oil/gas as our most valuable assets; we have built our civilisations with these as our currency. However in a society where everyday is spent trying to succeed and achieve in order to survive, perhaps we now need to see that time has become the most precious resource of our age.
One of my favourite books is Momo by Michael Ende. It is a children’s story about a young girl and her unusual friends who endeavour to prevent the men in grey stealing our time. As an adult I find the story a powerful reminder of the challenges we face today.
Our lives are so busy can we be sure that we are not already making time for the men in grey?
Here is an extract from the story: Momo is looking for the children who used to come and play with her.
“What about the children?...what’s become of them?”
“Nowadays kids with no-one to look after them are put in child depots. They aren’t allowed to look after themselves anymore, because.. well….they are taken care of……..child depots keep them of the streets..”
When Momo finds the children she asks them to come and play with her again, “You always used to in the old days” “..everything’s different now. We aren’t allowed to fritter our time away.”
“Where are you off to?” she asks.
“To our play class…That’s where they teach us to play”
“Play what?”
“Today we are going to play data retrieval, it’s a very useful game….we all pretend to be punch cards, and each card carries various bits of information about us….”
“Is it fun?”
“That’s not the point...”
They had reached a big grey building with the words CHILD DEPOT over it.”