We all know the famous saying by Benjamin Franklin that, “Remember that time is money.” Wasting time is like wasting the opportunities that could make things a little better, a little smoother, and have more impact on growth. But oftentimes we end up wasting time unwillingly and there will always be some against the time to make use of those fading away time in their benefit.
Living in Dhaka is kinda the worst decision that we had to make, whether we wanted it or not, because for most, it comes with no option to choose from. Countless hours are getting wasted on the roads while sitting in traffic jams. In a survey, it's been found that almost 8.2 million working hours are wasted every day. Can you imagine the number? Huge!
So, how to mitigate this?
We can't go for the mass, but we do have our ways in the individual ends to minimize a little bit when we can. Like, every day while going to the office, I need to travel via local bus, so many times it happens that I go the whole route standing, no seats vacant due to the overflow of people. Maybe I got a seat, somehow managed, then I might do something to pass the time utilized. Like what? In the past, during train journeys, which used to be less crowded than Dhaka's local buses, would give me the complete comfort to plug in the earphones and maybe watch a movie (during my chill age), maybe watch a documentary, start watching tutorials, or so. Also, read books a few times. I wasn't a resident of Dhaka back then, so those two-hour+ journeys were spent like this. Those weren't hectic physically, but now, an insane level of pain while travelling, so the time of me utilising those hours is very less.
"ᵂᵒʳᵈˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵖⁱᶜˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐⁱⁿᵉ, ᵘⁿˡᵉˢˢ ᴵ ˢʰᵒᵘᵗᵒᵘᵗ ʷʰᵉʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᶜᵃᵐᵉ ᶠʳᵒᵐ!"
So, today, while coming back, I noticed a girl who could be someone from the university, heading towards home. She somehow got a seat and after that saw her opening a book, a history related to wars. She started to read. Today, there were tons of rush, verbal fights, and so on. Still, she was focused on her own world, reading on and on. I wasn't stalking her; she happened to be in front of me, and in a position where I could see the page she was reading. I was there for twenty minutes, she didn't even get distracted for a minute, glaze stuck to the pages, fingers through the lines, I could clearly understand how hooked she was into the pages.
I have colleagues who listen to podcasts while travelling, few prefer songs. Whatever it is, many of us try to utilize them. Mostly the young generations who got fancy stuff like earbuds, neckbands, which are easy to manage in such congested places. Reading books or from the phone takes some serious concentration and focus, as you get piles of people around you pushing from here and there. I am quite a noob at this. If I have extremely important stuff and the time is running low, then I might be doing this no matter what's going on in my surroundings. Oftentimes, I have seen students as well, reading from their notebooks, which gave me a sense that they gonna face exams for sure.
So yeah, amidst all the odds, a few of us often look for ways to utilise the resources that are getting faded away right before our eyes. The government is trying to tackle this problem, but things are really out of hand, so it's on us to act on our individual stages to minimize as much as we can; otherwise, these valuable hours will be continuously drained.