By José Dominiguez, September 5, 2019 — My friend Ernesto is always in his store. He is the owner of a little store at the Italian Market where he sells all kinds of stuff in a kind of combination of a Mexican-American mix. [He’s] aged 52, divorced, a hard-working person [who] spends 12 hours a day 7 days a week selling candies, refreshments, piñatas, jamoncillos, avocados, etc. He never complains about not having a social life. But I know that he longs for having free time to walk in a park just for the purpose of being in touch with nature and to feel the sunshine in his face.
I come to him very often and he always invites me to drink coffee and some other times beer. Ernesto is very pleased to speak with friends and almost all his social life is done in his little store at the same time he sells drinks, tortillas, etc.
I have to say that in terms of money he is a success. But one day he told me, “Don José, I’m done with my business. This is not what I want of life. I can say I have money — more perhaps than the average person — but in essence, I’m a very bad merchant.” “How come?” I asked since nobody in the neighborhood made more money than him.
“Well, Don José, I have changed my precious time, my life for peanuts. I have received money in payment for my time. But when the time comes and I have leave this world, all the money that I have made is not going to give more lifetime. I cannot buy time. I cannot buy life. So I’m going to close my store and my only treasure will be my will of living. I cannot afford changing my precious time for peanuts!”