Wasting Time

I was thinking the other day about what we call "wasting time". YOu know. When you were little your mom undoubtedly said, "You waste too much time". Mom was right, but kids are supposed to waste time. It's part of growing up that we move slowly as we experience new things or process some of the old into what we finally accept as what that thing is. That kids waste time is as natural as that person you know is always late or always early. That's what they are and you won't change them.

The problem for humans when they are older and allegedly mature is that time wasting is still seen as a sin. It is not. An employer complains about a worker wasting time, a husband says his wife wastes time shopping or the wife says the husband wastes time watching football on TV too much are common traditional examples of that. But time wasting methods change over time. The biggest time wasting of all today, everywhere in the world is using the cell phone constantly. Yet, many adults deny that is a time wasting  episode because the are the biggest transgressors of it. I hate cell phones, but I never claim that anyone is wasting time using them.

If that's the way an individual enjoys life, so be it. Cell phone overuse isn't time wasting, it's just an addiction that can annoy others, but "time wasting", no. In pre technological days we couldn't waste time using our computers because they did not exist. But now, the technological God( or maybe the technological devil) has given us a big time waster  so we a can search for nonsense when we should trim the hedges or mow the lawn.

Centuries ago people probably complained about other people wasting time riding their horses too much. Today they say the same thing about those who love their cars and drive them more than they need to. In other times reading was called time wasting. Today it is watching too much TV. In 1859  a lady who sewed clothing for hours each day was wasting time. Today that woman is said to waste time if she jogs every morning and goes to the gym for an hour or two four times a week. I don't think we should put a negative connotation on activities people like to do frequently. It's better to call them hobbies. When we do what we like it is good for us because ti distracts us from some of the unpleasantness of life.

I sometimes think that those people who complain about us wasting time, do so because they don't have time wasting activity for themselves. Perhaps they haven't found it, or maybe their temperament and personality is not to do something more often than society sees as normal. Maybe they are jealous at those who waste time and seem to be mellow and happy when doing it. We all have met people who are always scheduled, their time never allowing for anything than what is on the schedule. I feel sorry for them. Life is not a schedule to follow, and we are not required to account for what we do every minute of the day. But they won't ever understand that, so don't bother trying to explain it to them.

Oh, I just realized something. It is late and I should prepare dinner. I should stop wasting my time here!