WHAT DO WE DO WITH ‘THE EXTRA TIME’?

A government agent was sent to a remote and under-developed area of his country to tell the people about the plans to build a road through their territory.  They objected to it. Trying to convince them, the official asked, “How long does it now take you to deliver your goods in market by donkey using the existing trail?” “Three days,” they replied.

The agent thinking he had a convincing argument, said confidently “If we build that road through here; you will be able to go to market and come back home all in a single day.”

When the agent was thinking that he has won the argument, a man in the crowd who had been listening carefully responded, “But tell me, sir, what are we going to do with all the extra time?”

I wish we all have this kind of a question in our lives!

When we study the history of humankind we will see that never in its history have we had the facilities to make the life faster and easier. Machines have taken over the time and effort of human labor and intelligence.   But at the same time, never in history shall we find the humans so busy and do not have time enough to do the errands that are in front of them.   

For most of us, it seems there are not enough hours in a day to finish the daily chores. We run to reach nowhere. Have we asked, as Leo Tolstoy puts it in his story: How much land a man needs? We find ways of using ‘the extra time’ and end up depressed. Are we ready to ask (as I have said in a previous post) Quo vadis...?