Time Is Never An Enemy!

You go back home after a hard day at work to be with your family. But your time and priority are reserved for the sofa. Time is always racmg against your real priorities.

I was listening to my five-year-old daughter talking to another five-year-old. They were both not aware of me standing close by. My daughter was brag¬ging, and it was about me. She was telling her friend that her father was the nicest dad in the world. I read her bed¬time stories, played with her and bought her the nicest toys.
The problem was, as I lis¬tened to her, I could not remember when was the last time I had bought her a toy or read her a bedtime story. I might have done it months ago, and the frequencies between each action were far apart. But I was her father, and whether 1 was perform¬ing my role well or not, I was worth the brag.

When my daughter paused for a breather, she turned and saw me. She squealed and ran to me. She gave me a hug and I turned a shade of red with guilt.
Her little friend turned green with envy, but the colours on our faces were in complete contrast with reality. Later that evening, as I was stretching on the sofa to watch my favourite pro¬gramme, my daughter walked in. She flopped on the cushions and played with her toys. When she started yawn¬ing, it was I this time, and not her mother, who declared it was time for her bed.

I picked her up, grabbed a book by her bedside and read her a story. She looked right into my eyes as I did so. For her it was a rare treat; for me it was to legitimise her brag. It was a mixture of guilt and paying attention to a long-neglected job.

Children grow up very fast, just as we ourselves grew up very fast out of our parents' homes. Perhaps, not too fast to slowdown to keep up with the pace of growing up.TWenty-four hours is not a long time, since we spend a quarter of that time sleeping, a third working, and the rest doing things that do not really matter. You can send text messages to relatives and friends with the excuse that you have little time to visit them. You go back home after a hard day at work to be with your family. But your time and priority are reserved for the sofa. Time is always racing against your real priorities. It is like travelling in a time cap¬sule where everything whizzes past you. You leave everything behind, but the funny thing is, you always get behind schedule as you keep speeding.

When was the last time you left work an hour early for home? It must have been ages ago. If it is too long to remember, then count the number of hours and multi¬ply them by 30. For last year, multiply the answer by 12. These hours stretch to days, and even weeks, away from what is really important. When you were a child, you grew up too fast to become a young person. And now you are growing too fast to be an old person.

Once you are on your rock¬ing chair, there is nothing else to grow for. Your children will follow the same pattern —f too busy to visit you like you were with your parents. This is because you did not show them how it should have been done. You see them whizzing in the same time capsule mat takes them nowhere. History repeats itself and you started it. From the cradle to the graveyard, nothing has ever been learnt. Time is never an enemy, but the irony is that we never give it the 'time'.

Written by SALEH AL-SHAIBANY