4 ideas
Hillel asks: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? The three questions check one another. Self-advocacy is necessary. Self-advocacy alone empties the self of worth. Deferral quietly cancels both.
Hillel sees a skull floating on the water and addresses it: because you drowned others, they drowned you, and in the end those who drowned you will be drowned. The scene frames violence as a self-perpetuating chain in which each retaliator becomes the next target. No one in the cycle escapes by winning a single round.
Ben Zoma inverts status terms by defining each through a relationship rather than a possession. The wise person learns from everyone. The mighty person conquers his own impulses. The rich person is content with his portion. The honored person honors others. Each quality becomes something anyone can practice, not something others can confer or withhold.
Rabbi Yaakov describes this world as a corridor leading to a banquet hall in the world to come, and says to prepare yourself in the corridor so you may enter the hall. The present is judged by what it prepares you for, not by what it yields now. That makes preparation, rather than enjoyment, the measure of time well spent.