Time is money so they say. But here at burningpants we believe time is relative, as in today’s busy world our perspective on time varies from one event to the next.

We may run to catch a train to save a few minutes or drive fast in our cars to keep up with others on the road, however on the flipside we can easily fritter away hours watching television or lose a weekend on a botched DIY project.

This week, three interesting scenarios stood out while travelling on London’s Underground.

On Monday there was a Tube strike which resulted in some commuters more than doubling the time it would normally take them to get to and from work.

On Tuesday there was heavy snow in London and my wife’s trip into her work took 1.45hours door to door – it usually takes 35mins.

In this context, of how minutes and hours can be lost, it was strange to see an advertisement on the Underground for a hair care product.

(You may note that I have had little need for haircare products for a few years now since becoming follicly-challenged)

Anyhow this product, see the ad below, seems to suggest that some people are too busy these days to have the time to wash their hair – surely not.

Perhaps I underestimate how much time somebody with long hair would need to wash, dry and style their hair.

But surely the alternative is not some form of self cleaning mousse to spray onto your head, similar to those disinfecting hand washes that are all the rage in office blocks these days.

What’s next? Too busy to shower?

So time is not relative it seems. 30mins in one context is not the same as 1 hour 30 mins in another context.

We believe time is relative though, it’s just that our minds tend not to think of it in this way, as the anchor we use to assess relativity is usually some external comparator (bigger car, slimmer waist, nicer meal etc.), unless of course the external anchor of comparison is time related i.e. waiting in line at a check out and looking to see how fast the other lines move.

Reinforcing this notion of relativity takes us all the way back to Moses.

Without wanting to get all biblical, a reference at this point to one of the 10 Commandments warrants a mention – ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour’s Wife’.

Ok so my own neighbour doesn’t have a wife as he lives alone, and the house on the other side is currently empty while it is renovated, but you get the point.

Everything is relative, it’s how we engage with the world, it’s how we make choices and assess our own position in it.

There are endless benchmarks across all walks of life – some are there for us to choose between things while others are statements of facts or comparisons

Examples include sporting league tables, examination grades, restaurant guides, train timetables, television channels, aisles in grocery shops, top 100 lists, top 10 lists, comparison websites, life expectancies – you name it, somebody measures it.

Which brings me back to square one. I’m actually starting to wonder how much time I’ve spent writing this article and what else I could have been doing had I not done so.

Perhaps you’ll do the same after reading it, afterall you could have spent the time more wisely washing your hair.