Over the holidays, I learned an important lesson about physical safety and the value of time.

It was at a crowded airport in the south, and I was trying to get on a flight to come home after spending Christmas with my family.

Going through airport security, I set off alarms in the walk-through metal detector. It wasn’t surprising because I have some “after market” parts and they tend to ring the bells on metal detectors.

The TSA agents needed to conduct a better scan so they gave me the choice of going back to a seriously long line to be scanned again or opting instead for the pat down search, which seemed to be quicker.

“What the heck,” I thought. There’s no line, I have nothing to hide and I’ll get through it more quickly this way, so I opted for the pat down search.

My shoes were confiscated. Standing in the middle of the airport, I extended my arms at my side like a prehistoric bird attempting flight while being frisked like the criminal TSA apparently thought I was.

Meanwhile, masses of people passing through the walk-through scanner were staring at me. I hoped none of them knew me because I looked and felt pretty ridiculous.

“Stay here,” the TSA agent said as she took my boarding pass and driver’s license and disappeared. The clock was ticking on my flight’s scheduled departure and I wondered exactly how long this was going to take. I was starting to get a little concerned about the delay.

With nothing else to do at that moment, I started to watch the people coming through security. There were hundreds. In fact, TSA had estimated that 41 million passengers would pass through security at airports over the holiday week.

And after repeated storms and more than 7,000 flight cancellations and delays around Christmas, the airport was crowded with angry travelers who were tired of waiting to pass through security.

There isn’t a person on the planet who doesn’t occasionally feel that their time is more valuable than anyone else’s.

I watched people moving through the scanners, rolling their eyes at the wait and checking their watches or sighing in exasperation. In the time that it takes to go through security, what else would they be doing? Sending a text? Looking at Facebook? Laughing with a family member?

And I watched the TSA agents politely check each passenger’s information as an unending wave of people moved in front of them one by one.

And that’s when, standing barefoot in the middle of airport security, I learned that all time does not have the same value.

Because in that same amount of time what were the TSA agents doing? They were saving lives.

For those of us who were about to get on a plane, there was no more valuable few minutes in the world.

And the great irony is that the TSA agents weren’t being paid for their time that day because of the government shutdown.

So what’s the wait in a security line worth from someone who isn’t being paid? Well, for those of us boarding planes that, or any other day, it’s priceless.