I’m new to Twitter. Upon arrival, following no one, I noticed many people added “No DMs” in their bios. I had followed less than ten people when I learned why.
As for the lonely guys who claim to be in love with my unflattering profile pic and seal their declarations of love with a pic of someone’s genitals–they’re on every platform and the best response is no response, other than my own private laughter.
Twitter, however, was my first meeting with a cryptocurrency fanatic, a woman who would not stop sending essay-length descriptions of how I could become a billionaire (or whatever–I didn’t read it all) with a very small investment. This woman WOULD NOT STOP.
Yes, I could have blocked her. I was curious, however. I answered with the truth. As bizarre as it may seem, I mean it when I say I hate talking about money. I told her my mind drifted even trying to read her pitches. The only thing I ever want to know about money is if I have any. Beyond that, I don’t care.
She said I was missing an incredible opportunity.
My answer: That’s great news for you as a salesperson! There should be thousands of people eager for an incredible opportunity. I’m not one of them.
Then I typed it: YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME.
Was she wasting her time? Was she wasting mine? Since I’m writing about it now, does the experience have worth? Or am I wasting my time writing about wasting time?
I was brought up with an ideal high-productivity work ethic. It was goal-centered and I should aim to make progress toward that goal. I should have something to show for all the hours of the day. Activities that did not advance me in the direction of my goal were considered a waste of time, for the most part.
If you think about that way of life, however, it loses meaning with time. In the third grade, sure, I felt I had accomplished something by writing a book report. Looking back, I now judge that accomplishment as a waste of time. In fact, probably eighty percent of the time I’ve spent in classrooms (as a student or a teacher) I file under “wasted time”. Yet, that time was highly productive in terms of tangible output. In the long term, it loses meaning, other than relationships that grew from it.
The other extreme–doing nothing–is also labeled as a waste of time. I can’t speak for everyone on this topic, but when writing, the activity of doing nothing is valuable to future productivity. Thoughts need marinating, steeping, percolating. Emerging from a writing session with a blank page doesn’t necessarily mean nothing has been produced.
Likewise, exerting yourself for a goal and failing can seem futile, as well. You may prepare and travel for a job interview. If you don’t get the job, have you wasted your time? If you write a book and it is never published, would you have been better off not writing it? If that recipe from the YouTube that required visits to three stores and took four hours to prepare was inedible and ended up in the garbage, was it a waste of time?
Is watching “Dirty Dancing” for the fortieth time productive? Is there a point to washing your car when it only gets dirty again–isn’t that a waste of time? Exercise may add years to your life, but you spend years of your life exercising; doesn’t it cancel itself out as wasted time?
It seems to be a concept with no definition. A popular quote, “Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted” (once credited to John Lennon, but since questioned) implies that if pleasure is involved, it escapes the label. Maybe so, but I have to say I spent too many hours of my life building Sim houses, although it was fun at the time. The value of fun tends to change with age.
“I wasted the best years of my life with that loser,” is a common phrase. It suggests that if you had spent those years with a winner, the time would have been judged differently. Apparently, we see relationships as investments and we expect a certain return from them (as if we don’t know by the age of twelve that human beings are the most unreliable commodities). But is it a waste of time to attempt to connect with a potential loser?
There’s an Eagles song that takes on the argument of failed relationships and wasted time. Frey and Henley seem to believe that down the line, we see them differently with any luck. If we learn from an experience, does that make it worth the time of the learning? A lot of us are slow learners and make the same mistakes over and over–how can that NOT be wasting time?
We’re left with productivity, fun, or education as criteria for good uses of time. That doesn’t help. Productivity, fun, and education mean different things to different people, and the meanings change over lifetimes.
For that matter, we don’t even agree on what time is.
The only time we have is now. This second. How you use this second is up to you, and how you judge the use of this second is likely to change within all the future “nows”.
My apologies to the cryptocurrency salesperson. Your judgment of time-wasting is completely up to you.
