I came across a little book the other day written by a man to his son for his 21st bithday.  Although I only met this man once, we talked at his office for 9 hrs straight.  It is full of quotes, poems, life stories from the sages of old as well as a few adventuress tales and life lessons of his own.  What a great gift to give to your own son or daughter.  Even though I am not his son, at our parting he gave me a copy of the book and said "I wish we had met earlier in life".  I think of him often.  Here is one of the stories that I thought might be relevant as you go through your days. 

A young man was in Belfast waiting for the boat train to take him back to Scotland.  He was in the pub at the station having a long conversation with an elderly local man obviously retired, about life in general.  They had been talking for about 4 hours.  At about 8:30 the young man looked at his watch and casually remaked that he would have to leave in 20 minutes or so to catch his train.  The old man glared at him for about 15 seconds then said "Another slave of the bloody clock".

Time is not necessarily on your side.  Time is a finite commodity.  It is used by some people, abused by others, ignored by most and blamed by many - but it is relentless.  Respect it, and use it, - but don't waste it. 

What is the name of the book?

Personally this is one of my main reasons for being a real estate investor. When i am married and have children i will have already purchased my time from my hard work now.  The most valuable thing in life is time. Thank you for the reminder and great story. 

@William Sackett sounds like a great book, would you mind sharing the name of the book and its author?

The name of the book is "Twenty One".  It was never for sale or in any book store.  There were only a few copies for family and I guess friends which I'm blessed to be one.  As for his name, I would rather not share.  As time passes I'll share more from this treasure and hopefuly those written words will inspire some to be better as it did me.  

Very wise words! We learned that the hard way during my husbands first duty station

That is actually how we got started. I realized I didn't want to be tied to anyone to live in a certain place for financial reason. I invest in real estate for my "future" and family. My husband is living his dream "blowing stuff up". My dream is to be able to quit the work force in 2 years to be able to raise our family and have our family be flexible around my husband schedule. Than in 15 years to be able to have us both "permanently" retire living on our schedule and desires, no ones else's.