(Read part 1 here)

The problem with the value of a currency is that it can change in an instant, like when the stock market crashes. It happens. One moment you’re walking with US dollars and the next instant they’re Zim.

Take for instance Tiger Woods. It took a lifetime to build up a reputation as the worlds greatest golfer. It took years of playing on the amateur circuit before he turned pro, and it took a year on the pro circuit before he won a major. It took months of sacrificing family and friends to train and tour. It took many days playing a tournament. It took hours warming up in the morning. It took minutes of visualising good shots. It took a 1sec decision to cheat on a marriage. And throw it all away.

Now his life is no longer as valuable. He may still be a great golfer but he’s no longer a role model. In an instant he went from an awe-inspiring hero to a great golfer. His currency changed.

That’s a lot of pressure isn’t? It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation and only a second for it to come crashing down. Heck sometimes it’s not even our own fault. Like if you’re really absent minded and end up doing something really embarrassing, like the time I walked out of the school change rooms without any shorts. It takes a lifetime for that to wear off.

Sometimes your life changes and you had nothing to do with it. It takes 1hr for someone to get drunk, 1min to find their car keys, and only 1sec to skip a traffic light and reduce some other families’ currency to Zim Dollars.

It’s so much pressure trying to keep the currency alive, making every second count. Too much in fact.

So what’s the solution? How do we ensure our currency keeps it value, and that our lives count, especially when the market just crashes without us having done anything wrong?

First, when the market crashes the best thing people can do is go back to work, to try and allow the currency to strengthen again. It can happen. So get up, learn from mistakes and try hard to make up for it. Make every moment from this point on meaningful.

The second thing is to turn to someone that can exchange your currency for you, like a foreign exchange center. For me that’s God. Because my change in my pocket was worthless, I was messing it all up. And then someone told me that because God is infinite and eternal, it means he has unlimited currency, and so he could exchange my Zim Dollars for Kruger Rands in an instant. And I did that.  And now I’m walking around with a pocketful of eternal change.

How long is one second?

Is it the 24 hours that it takes for the earth to rotate divided by 24, 60 and 60? That used to be the standard, but then we realised that it kept changing and so we made it some fixed period of oscillation of the Caesium 133 atom. Which is not terribly meaningful.

How about this: 1 sec is the time it takes to notice someone across the room. It’s also the time it takes to wink at them. It’s also the time it takes for them to smile back at you (if you’re lucky). It’s also the amount of time your heart stops when that happens.

How long is one minute?

60 seconds you say? So does that mean 60 times the oscillations of the Caesium 133 atom? Or the rotation of the earth divided by 1440?

Or how about this: It’s the time taken to ask for her phone number (because it’s not as easy as it looks on TV). And for her to write it down. And for you to make an awkward closing statement. To watch her as she leaves the room.

How long is one hour?

That’s the amount of time it takes to think about what to say before phoning her. Or to type and then retype the first text message. Or to have the first phone conversation (or to hang up). Or to have the first cup of coffee with her. Or to say goodbye in the parking lot.

One second, one minute, one hour. They’re not just measurements of time but moments. And moments have value and currency. And those moments add up, and eventually become your life. Max Lucado says life is almost like having a whole bunch of loose change in your pocket. The 5c piece can be one sec, the R1 a minute, and the R5 an hour.

The thing is that we’re all given the exact same amount of change in our pockets, as we all have the same amount of time in a day. There’s one difference though, we’re all using different types of currency.

Some people have zim dollars in their pocket, because they waste the 1sec, 1min, 1hr, and all those moments are worthless. And someday when someone asks them to pull out their moments of time they will dig into their pockets and haul out a big bunch of those notes, and then realise that it’s pretty worthless, and they’ve wasted their time.

But other people have stronger currency. Some have Rands, still others have US, some have Euros. Some have Kruger Rands. For those people, when they pull out their change one day the value is massive. Like the moments of their lives have been meaningful and are worth something, something valuable.

And so we should work on making our moments count. Every second, minute and hour, so that all the small change might have some value one day.

(Part 2 next week: The stock market crash)