On wasting time (or not)
I was sitting on the couch the other day. Wasn’t reading, working, scrolling. Just sitting. It’s my way of meditating. You know, being with what is. Usually, I don’t do that for long (five to fifteen minutes tops).
After a few minutes I thought, “This is a waste of time.”
It was my brain’s small manager who constantly checks if everything I do is “useful.” Of course sitting and doing nothing, you can guess it, wasn’t.
That got me thinking.
If doing nothing is a waste of time, what exactly counts as “not wasting it”?
Answering emails or texts?
Gym session?
Reading?
Learning?
All sound like useful activities right? But all of those things are only “useful” because of something else:
👉Emails = useful for work.
👉Work = useful for income.
👉Income = useful for living.
And living… well, that’s where it gets vague. Because at some point, usefulness has to stop pointing somewhere else. Otherwise we end up in a strange loop where everything we do is for something else, but nothing is for itself.
So I thought to try seeing this from a different angle.
What if sitting on the couch, doing nothing, isn’t a waste of time but one of the few moments that isn’t used for anything?
Sounds small, but it does change things.
The value of a moment isn’t always in what it produces. Sometimes the value is simply that it’s there… and you’re in it. No improvement, outcome, or story to tell later. Just time passing.
Doesn’t mean you should quit your job and stare at the wall all day. That would probably create new problems quite quickly. But it does raise a question:
If every minute has to justify itself, when do you actually get to live it?
So, in that thought, I think wasting time isn’t the opposite of a meaningful life but simply a small part of it.🙂
Anyway, just something I noticed while doing absolutely nothing.
— Wesley
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