Supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with "twenty-four hours" of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours.
It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself.
No one can take it from you.
No one receives more or less than you receive.
Talk about ideal democracy! In the realm of time, there is no aristocracy. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day.
And, there is no punishment. Waste your commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you.
Payment will not be affected by Sundays.
And, you can not draw on the future. So, impossible to get into debt. You can only waste the passing moment. You can't waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You can't waste the next hour; it is kept for you.
(I will stop there...I start to disagree here, at that last couple of statements. You can draw on the future by postponing today's work or this hour's work into the next one!)
From How to live on 24 hours a day - Arnold Bennett
First published in 1930s
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