Watch

 

              One day, when I was reading posts on Twitter, I found a comment that said, “When I became a member of society, my senior gave me . . . advice: ‘You should wear an expensive watch. It will give you many advantages.’ Then I spent all my money and bought an expensive watch. But it didn’t [give] me any advantage after all.”

              I think the senior didn’t have any malice. In the past, people evaluated others depending on their watches because only expensive watches were considered to be accurate. When I was a child, my first housework chore was setting the clocks according to the time displayed on the TV. In those days, before news programs started, they showed a clock and informed us of the accurate time. All our clocks were spring-wound clocks.

              At that time, only expensive watches showed accurate time. Wearing an expensive watch created appeal. “I am very careful about time management.” That could give the person much advantage. Cheap watches easily became too fast or too slow. However, there were drastic improvements in the watch industry. Even cheaper watches became accurate. The meaning of wearing an expensive watch changed.

              When I was a student, my senior gave me advice: “You should wear expensive shoes. You should have an expensive bag.” Is this advice valuable even now? Nowadays, even cheap bags and cheap shoes are not so bad.

              I must be careful about giving advice to young people. My advice could be outdated. First of all, most young people don’t wear watches now. If I could give advice to young people, it would be this: “Evaluating people depending on their props is not so effective. People are more complex than that.”

Picture by SIF