“Good morning,” said the little prince.
Good morning,” said the merchant.
This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink.
Why are you selling those?” asked the little prince.
Because they save a tremendous amount of time,” said the merchant. “Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save 53 minutes in every week.”
And what do I do with those 53 minutes?”
Anything you like…”
As for me,” said the little prince to himself, “if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.”
I remembered this paragraph from “The Little Prince” when I was talking with a friend about how much time I saved from March onwards, since I move much less between meetings.
This period made us stop from this constant run between places, it forced us to settle and do our work at a different pace. But we still have that time.
Some of us filled it with other job-related activities; others have spent more time with their children, have rediscovered them; others have lost it in vain or sunk into their negative state.
The only thing that I miss is the interaction with people beyond the screen.
Other than that, I hope that we will learn to appreciate and keep what we won, and to use some of the time with more sense.