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Time, Knowledge, Commitment, and Identity
June 8, 2009
What is it that each of us have to offer to others and to ourselves? When it is distilled to the very basics it is time, knowledge, commitment, and identity. This is all we have to offer. Any other venue is a vehicle for conveying some or all of these four values of ourselves to others.
Let us take a moment to step through the various parts of this statement.
Time:
ime is either given or sold. Each second is used or is
lost, never to be regained. Time is a value often sold at wholesale
to a business for wages. Time can be donated to a cause (good or bad)
at no charge. Answering phones at a phone bank for a non-profit is
donating time. Spending time with children, family members, friends,
or for your own self is using time.
Knowledge:
Time is not complete by its self. Knowledge is key to
using your time with wisdom. The more knowledge, the more valuable
your time is to yourself and others. So, time without knowledge has
little value other than once used it is gone. False information or
lying is not use of knowledge for this example.
Commitment:
Commitment can be anywhere from indifference to full
love. When commitment is being used, value is added to time and
knowledge. If indifference is the level of commitment, time and
knowledge is minimized to a large degree. Indifference will create an
effort of giving time and knowledge that is compromised.
Identity:
Who we are and what we are influences the other three
values tremendously. This can be as simple as how we see the world,
to being of high integrity to all those who we have contact. Identity
influences, not only ourselves, but those around us. If the
perception of our view is faulty or we have no interest in
understanding how we see the world and how we inter-act with others,
all the time, knowledge, and commitment can be questioned and your
value to others and yourself is diminished.
We exchange these four values in varying degrees for the same in return from others, usually in the form of money, goods or services if it is business. In another form as love and duty to family, friends and country, as well as faith. In reality it is of little importance in this example if the exchange includes materials or only ideas.
When dealing in business and its varying forms, those who most often succeed use these four values with the most efficiency and demonstrate that these values in others, time, knowledge, commitment, and identity is of great value and importance to them as an individual and as a business. Not only does this mean past tense (which is most often converted into money) but present tense as well (usually not yet convert into money or similar value.)
To waste time is to literally reach into the pocket of an individual and steal. It is the same as stealing money or any other value. It must be the decision of the individual to give the time, not someone taking it without permission.
If an error in a transaction occurs by the one who sells, it is the responsibility of the seller to not only correct the error with the commodity, but with compensation for time as well; otherwise it is stealing and is fraudulent. This is why many businesses lose customers after correcting an error. There was no repair of the time used. The customer walks away feeling cheated.
Granted most businesses have no problem replacing a faulty product. However, these same businesses fail to compensate for the time and commitment that was used by the customer to correct the problem. It is not the responsibility of the customer to use the most non-renewable resources an individual has, time, knowledge, commitment, and identity without compensation unless it is given freely..
Some businesses say they have difficult customers. If we look carefully, most often a business claiming such occurrences has failed to deal with the customer's time, knowledge, commitment, and identity, both in the past tense and the present tense. Who is really the difficult entity in these situations the customer or the business?
When business occurs, all transactions should be to the satisfaction of all parties, often this occurs using different values. Those businesses who truly strive to accomplish this, with the understanding of the four values will have repeat business. The customer will be enriched; the question is, which business will be enrich by the customer?
©2009 The Wall of News, a service of the Society for Accurate information and Distribution, a 501(c)3 foundation. www.wallofnews.net and www.saidnews.org
