TIME

Whoa, it's been a while since I write something. 

"Life is related to time. To live is to exist for a period of time. Life and time are therefore inseparable. If life is valued, time must also be valued. Unfortunately this relationship between life and time does not seem to be appreciated. Life is valuable but time is not. Time is therefore wasted or completely disregarded. 

Disregard for time is seen in the careless way in which it is spent. Doing nothing, or sipping coffee is almost a national habit. An invitation to ceremonial occasion in a kampong is invariably for an indefinite time. One may arrive at any time, eat at any time, and go off at any time. No one ever arrives on time for a meeting but once started there is no limit to the time it can last. A meeting would therefore start late and end even later, no matter how much the time of the meeting is adjusted to suit everyone.

When there is no awareness of time, there can be no planning and work is never reliable. A time-table is an essential part of the life of modern man. Indeed, the more technologically advanced a man, the more he is bound to time. Without mathematically perfect timing man would never have conquered space. A community which is not conscious of time must be regarded as a very backward society. What is more, it will remain a backward society. It can never be achieved by anything on its own and it can never be expected to advance and catch up with superior time-conscious civilization. There is no doubt that a community failure to value time is one of the most important handicaps to their progress."

These three paragraphs are copied from the book " The Malay Dilemma " written by Mahathir Mohammad. This book was written 30 years ago, after the 1969 tragedy. What was so mesmerizing about this book is that all the problems that were pointed out that was related to the attitude of the Malay really depict the present. I won't say nothing has change in this 30 years period but this could be seen majorly around my friends. What is the cause of all this? Are we being too pampered by all the policies set up by the government? The policies are suppose to assist us to be better in a shorter period of time ( we don't have 4000 years to perfect our civilisation)  but we did not progress to the expectation set by our forefathers. 

This left me dumbfounded. We expect our nation to be capable on competing with other nation in world stage but the attitude of the rakyat still have not changed at all. Not all behaving like this but majority of us. Time must be honoured and shall not be taken for granted. If the most valuable thing in front of our eyes is gold then time should be treated that way. We can move forward if we respect time. We can move forward if we are aware of the consequences or danger of not respecting time. When I grew up I saw the people who excel are those mostly who are disciplined and consistent. Ask these people, do they play around with time? Is time a friend, or an enemy?  

In a fast-paced world, those who are late are left behind.