By:
Russ Walden,
Think about the ten
smartest and most productive people whom you know or even know of – the people
whose long busy days invariably leave the world a little bit better than it was
when their days began. These are
people who make things or invent things, or people who change the lives of other
people, directly or indirectly. These
are people who are often pushing at the envelope of the possible to find new and
better ways for us to live our lives.
They use their time to make our time more interesting or productive.
These
people, and their counterparts, have been with us since the beginning of human
history. They discovered fire and
electricity, invented interplanetary vehicles and antibiotics -- always giving
more to mankind than it was possible for mankind to give back.
Now,
expand your list from ten to one hundred – hard to come up with the names,
isn’t it? Forget the names; just
think about the concept of those people who every day do something to make the
world better. Now, expand the list
again – to one thousand, to one hundred thousand, to one million.
Just in our country alone, that is less than one percent of the
population.
Those
people, all one million of them, are out there somewhere every day, making our
world better. Because of them, we
will one day cure cancer, take leisure trips to the moon, wear personal
anti-gravity devices and live longer, more productive and more enjoyable lives.
Suppose
that the gods granted you infinite power to make a gift to those people – a
gift which would be of immense value to them and, simultaneously, of immense
value to all mankind. What could you
give them that they do not already have or that they need more of?
What is the one gift that would be of great value to them, but of even
greater value to society? The answer
is simple: more time.
Give
them more time to do the things they do so well, and the results of their
efforts will flow back into society. Conversely,
the single most valuable thing they have that we could steal from them is their
time. If we do that, however, we are
like the vandals who destroy art works or bash mailboxes – we steal value
which we cannot, ourselves, use. If
I steal an hour from a research physicist, I cannot use it to expand my day; I
can only diminish his day.
That
is exactly what we are doing now all across
A
child will die because the scientist who would have discovered a cure was
standing in line to have his identification examined by someone who could barely
read it. An old man will live his
days limited by his medical condition because the technician who would have run
the tests on the new series processor chips was standing in line waiting for his
portable computer to be examined by someone not capable even of understanding
how it functions. Six thousand
people will die or live inadequate lives because the people who would have
contributed to their betterment were standing in lines, missing connections and
wasting the most valuable resource on earth – their time.
These
were my thoughts as I began my day making my first air trip since
I
thought of these things as I stood in line to check a bag that I rarely ever
checked before because I always traveled carry-on.
Can’t do that anymore – not because I’m carrying more stuff, just
can’t take simple things like my little computer tool kit on board the
airplanes anymore. These were some
of my thoughts as I was asked, for the first time today, to show my
identification.
I
thought of these things as I stood in line again, this time to show my
identification and my ticket to yet another person who would grant me the simple
privilege of submitting myself and my carry-on bag to electronic examination.
I had even more time as I stood in that line while a grizzled veteran
tried, in vain, to explain to a security person whose IQ likely did not exceed
room temperature that he had a steel plate in his leg, left over from his
vacation in Viet Nam thirty years ago.
While
I was standing in line to show my identification for the third time, this time
to a person who would grant me access to the aircraft waiting to whisk me off to
I
have traveled regularly for most of my business career.
Over the years I have watched the progression of the time thieves as they
stole small increments of my time and the time of those million others like me
whose jobs and lives involve travel. I
watched as the increments of theft grew larger.
In whimsical nostalgia, I look back to the late sixties when I was
working on “moon stuff.” A
panicked call from our customer or a key supplier would take me away at a
moment’s notice. When such a call
came, usually from somewhere around
If
I was close to the flight time, I would go directly to the gate and ask the gate
agent if there was a vacant seat. The
reply was usually, “Yeah, but you’ve got to hurry.
Go get on the plane.” Yep;
that’s what I said – just go get on the plane, like boarding a bus.
On board I would find a vacant seat, then, after takeoff, the flight
attendant would sell me a ticket to legitimize my presence.
Those days are gone forever – taken away by the time thieves.
Now,
somewhere over
I
chuckled as I unrolled my napkin containing the “silverware” that
accompanied my meal – metal spoon, metal forks, and a plastic knife.
I had ordered the steak for lunch, and I can assure the reader that any
plastic knife capable of cutting an airline steak is also capable of cutting the
flight attendant’s throat. So,
what we have is another symbolic surrender to the time thieves.
What
is particularly grating and galling to me is knowing that if everything that I
endured this morning had been done on September 11th, the outcome
would have been the same and three thousand people would have died.
While the stealers of time and freedom practice their evil craft, we are
not made more safe, just more inconvenienced and less free.
There is one single thing that would have averted most of the loss of
life on September 11th, and it was accomplished in one instance.
That one thing is for the passengers of those planes simply to say
“No” to the hijackers. Never
again will a few would-be hijackers intimidate a hundred passengers into
sheep-like compliance. That is
changed forever – and it took no passage of laws to do it.
Why,
then, do we so meekly submit to these incursions into our freedoms and the theft
of our time? Perhaps because it is
all so impersonal and, after all, it makes people feel more safe.
But, in a world that keeps turning round and round, eventually, perhaps
even in a circuitous fashion, it will become personal to each of us.
Perhaps it will be I whose life is cut short by a disease not cured
because the scientist spent so much time standing in line that he had less
available to practice his craft. Perhaps
it will be your child, or grandchild, whose life will be cut short because the
technician who would have finished testing the chips that would have made a
life-saving device possible in time, could not complete the testing soon enough
because he was once again waiting in line to show his identification to someone.
When
those things happen, they will be intensely personal to us, but will we
recognize their connections? Will we
then realize and acknowledge that we, ourselves, were complicit in these sad
events simply because of our meek surrender to the time thieves?
Probably
not.
Russ
Walden,