6 July 2018 What Do You Waste Time On?

What Do You Waste Time On?

The economic term for wasting time is opportunity cost.  What was the cost of doing one activity over another?  I know how valuable time is, yet I still waste a lot of it.  I am fortunate, I have a lot of non-work time.  I can choose to do many activities.  The internet is the biggest challenge for me.  It is so easy to open up the laptop or even the phone and go on YouTube.  I have a Facebook account but rarely go there.  I am not on any other social media.  But, YouTube has shown to be a time black hole.  I can’t go on it and watch just one video. I watch another and another and pretty soon an hour or more is gone.  I guess it is the tv of the internet age.  For most of my youth and adult life, I spent way too much time watching tv.  Over the past 10 years I have greatly reduced that.  However, there are days when I jump on YouTube to “just watch a couple.” I know I have be very careful with this. I can’t just replace traditional tv with internet videos.  

I also spend a lot of time sitting out back on my deck, or if the weather is not good then in my living room, looking out at the pond behind the house. The solitude and time for thinking is very relaxing.  But, is it wasting time?  On weekends, I can spend two hours just sitting there.  Sometimes I do write or read, however, most is just gazing out in nature.  If I enjoy it, is it wrong?  Is there a better use of my time?  For now, I would say no.  I am very grateful I am able to have this time to myself.  I don’t need to be alone to enjoy it, it is just the reality for most of the time.     

One of the sayings from the Tao Te Ching is “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”  I can follow that, just it needs to be occasionally and not regularly.