Of Power, Money And Time
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 by Mark | Posted in Unconventional Thinking | CommentsLife is a delicious and dangerous paradox.
Allow me to put this in perspective. Of sorts.
Successful people generally want one or both: money and/or power. And they pursue them. Often both simulstaneously.
If life is good, and God smiles on them, they achieve both. In the vast majority of cases this is so because they are smart or talented or both. They do what they do through their gut and their DNA and the money follows. And when the money comes, the power almost always comes close behind. Or visa versa.
And then, wham, they hit The Wall. It’s called TIME. In the race, the continuum of life, the people who were never driven, never successful, never wealthy, never powerful, start to catch up to the stars.
Why? TIME.
Lions become aged lambs. Wealth withers or, and this is worse, there is suddenly no reason to have it. Peers die, competition wanes, toys become stupid diversions, and most miserable of all, the clock ticks. There is less time to make things happen and things lose the meaning they used to have.
Or do they? I met an old lion this week. Actually a young lioness with what society widely believes are too many zeroes after her age as opposed to her bank account. But who is “Society?” Do they show up at parties? At malls? In houses of worship?
Do they understand Power and Wealth? Perhaps. But time, ah, that’s another matter. Einstein changed the universe by redefining time, but it killed him too. No one escapes it. No matter how much power and money they have.
As human beings, we live within the goal posts of 100 years. Some much less. A few a bit more. But a century is the time frame we are locked in. In the early years, we are in a hunt for power and money- each to his or her own appetite for it, but all in the hunt. And we work feverishly to achieve the twin towers of success in the blind belief that we can achieve a certain place, a certain quantity, a certain stature and hold on to it.
But we are myopic to the great equalizer of time. It cares not a whit about bank accounts or corporate titles or business empires or Oscars or Grammys or Nobel medals. It takes you to another place and all that you have built and achieved goes with it. 
We don’t want to think about this. It is not pleasant.
But it is there and it is vital because if we ponder it, we will put the actions we take on the way up in the perspective of what they will mean on the way down. I don’t say this because I believe life is a zero sum game. It may be, it likely is, but I prefer not to live with that philosophy, or lack of one.
Instead, I see great reason to pursue the twin towers in our business and our personal lives–and to pretend that the greatest force of all, time, does not exist. Does not matter. Does not level all that stands in its way.
We have only a limited set of mental and physical tools. And a small timeframe to put them to use. This is the deck we were handed. This the reality we cannot change.
The choice is to give up, knowing in the end it all comes to an obit in the local newspaper or to take time and do magnificant things with it even though it will prevail in the end.
The lioness showed me the majesty of that.
Mark Stevens
CEO
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