seize the time

( Original article published in Good Young Man’s Poison Room-Philosophy Department )

Text｜Gudaofeng
Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆

Ever since we were young, everyone has told us to cherish time and seize it. When you were a child, your mother said: "Still playing on the computer? Seize the time!" When I went to school, the teacher said: "Every inch of time is worth an inch of gold." After work, successful people who are positive and earn 100,000 yuan a month will still chatter in your ears. : "It's not difficult to be as successful as me. As long as you seize the time and follow these five tips: 1. Get up at five o'clock every morning; 2. When you get up every day, say to yourself: 'I have one more day to add value to myself. ! Life is so beautiful!"... "No one would object to spending time in vain as it is a bad habit, so seizing the time must be a good habit, right?

I would say it depends on what you do with your time.

In philosophy, there is a distinction between the so-called "self-sufficient value" and "instrumental value". If I say something has self-sufficient value, I mean that the thing itself has value. If I say that something has "instrumental value," I mean that it is valuable only because it accomplishes other goals. For example, we generally believe that love has self-sufficient value and that love itself has value even if it fails to achieve other goals. You wouldn't say the following to your girlfriend, would you? "Actually, I think love itself has no value, but love can help me achieve other goals-show off on Facebook, so our love is valuable." When we say money is valuable, we mean that it has instrumental value and has purchasing power. , can achieve various valuable goals─buying books, buying toys, buying properties... But the piece of silver paper covered with bacteria itself probably has no value, right? Even if there is, it is not high.

In the same way, the reason why grasping time is valuable seems to be mainly instrumental value. If you don’t count what you do in a day and just focus on the fact that you have passed twenty-four hours, is there any value at all? Maybe, but not high. The reason why mothers, teachers, and successful people advise you to seize your time is probably not because "passing twenty-four hours" is valuable in itself, right? If so, they don't need to advise you at all. No matter what you do, those twenty-four hours will pass. If you sleep a full day, you will also "grasp" those twenty-four hours.

They advise you to seize the time because it can be used to achieve other goals. The goal your mother wants you to achieve is to get 100 points on every silent exam, the goal your teacher wants you to achieve is to get an A for school in public exams, and the goal successful people want you to achieve is to make more money. In their eyes, the value of grasping time is a tool value that can be exchanged for good grades and high income. But when they advise you to seize the time, they often fail to explain this clearly. They directly equate "seize the time" with "seize the time, study hard and make money." It seems that only by pursuing these goals can you seize the time. Don't go for these. Running straight towards the goal is a waste of time.

But are these goals what you want? Do you want to get high scores? Or do you actually not care at all? Do you want to make a lot of money? Or do you actually think it’s enough? Socrates said: "A life without examination is not worth living." I might as well imitate it and say: Without examination, it is not worth rushing to seize the time. Because since the value of seizing time mainly lies in the other goals that can be achieved by doing so, before you "seize" time, you should certainly ask: Are these goals valuable to me? If the answer is yes, then it is certainly a good habit to seize the time to achieve these goals, but if you fail to answer this question and rush to "seize" the time, it is very likely that you are not actually trying to seize the time, you are just trying. Just wasting time.

"Flowers have to be cut when they are in full bloom. Don't wait until there are no flowers to break off branches." Teachers always like to quote this sentence to advise us to seize the time and study hard. Some people say that the person who wrote this poem is a singing prostitute, and she is advising people to enjoy themselves in time.

The original article was published in Hao Ji Hao

古道風自出娘胎起就在香港攻讀吃蛋之學，於芙蓉蛋一道鑽研尤深，更曾負笈東瀛與當地學者就蛋包飯、親子丼等課題交流，不離地又兼具國際視野，某垃圾台「在地同行，跳躍飛騰」之標語，用來形容我才對。不肚餓時就想想哲學問題。

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