‘Watch’ your time to make progress

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

The fact that exhibitions of luxury goods and high fashion items couple diamonds, precious gems and jewellery with watches and timepieces should give us all an indication of the value people place on these symbols of aspiration. Often costing the price of a small apartment in a busy metropolis, a top-brand luxury watch is the prism through which many wearers and owners reiterate their self-worth and that’s what makes these watches a huge status symbol.

I was quite surprised, therefore, to read of a case where a UAE resident coming to his home country (India) was slapped with a hefty fine by customs officials and his single top-brand wrist watch was valued as being of ‘commercial quantity’ instead of as a personal belonging. The case even went to court but the owner did have to pay a ‘redemption fee’ to get his confiscated timepiece back.

It is understandable that watches designed as items of beauty and precision are regarded as potential heirlooms and even included in inheritances. The Delhi customs was not entirely wrong, in my opinion, in classifying even one highly expensive watch as commercial quantity. After all that watch was worth about BD 5,500 and that sort of money goes a long way in India. Why, even in Bahrain, there is a brisk and legal (if shadowy) trade in gifted luxury watches and older branded watches being sold to make way for trending models.

At the end of the day, though, what matters is not the type of watch you wear or can afford but whether you are a master of managing time. If you cannot plan your time properly and are always turning up late or forgetting meetings, the whole purpose of owning a timepiece, however valuable or humble, will be lost.

Remember every person on this planet has the same 24 hours to achieve his or her goals. How one does it and progresses is governed by how you manage the most finite of resources: your time.

(Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Tribune and the President of the Arab-African Unity Organisation for Relief, Human Rights and Counterterrorism)