Wasted time lowers your lifespan. If you lived 70 years, for example, but spent five years of wasted time in prison, then your life could not be 70 years of meaningful existence—unless your incarceration had transformed you into a better person. What if you lived 100 years at a rehab center because of your chronic drug addiction? A meaningless life is like an empty can. It is devoid of its essential element, which is purpose.
I was at the airport a long time ago, when the smartphone was not yet every man’s best friend. I observed the varying attitudes of the waiting passengers. For example, I saw one old man toying with his analog mobile phone and another middle-aged man who was busy with his laptop. Most of the passengers were just sitting, doing nothing.
I wonder how tempting it is to waste our time by doing nothing while waiting for our plane. Why can’t we be proactive? Why not exercise our mental muscles by reading a good book or contemplating how we can improve our lot in life?
A certain study by Dr. John N. Morris 1 has shown that we must have regular sessions of thinking and learning to maintain brain health. Everything in nature that is unused is bound to crumble for lack of purpose. As a lover of nature, I used to keep a close eye on the tiny branches that grew on the trunk of a tall mango tree. They don’t bear fruit, and in due time, they will wither and die.
A Waste of God’s Time
There is a time to live and a time to die. True, “Men live as if they will never die, and die as if they have never lived.” If God gave me a hundred lives, I would spend them all, minute by minute, in the spirit of appreciation of this life and full use of my time for good.
What right do I have to waste my God-given time on living this life? My wife would sometimes suggest to me the principle of play, the one thing young kids love. I loved playing chess or basketball when I was younger. “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”
Yes, you can make better use of time in games. They say a U.S. president is expected to know how to play golf. Gaming per se, however, such as computer games—just like nonsense Facebooking—is a waste of time. And I always translate a loss of time into a waste of lifespan!
A Misunderstanding of the Essence of Time
When I was still a college student, my friends told me that reading good books (instead of enjoying their nonsense conversations) was the worst form of introversion. One of them laughed at me one time while commenting that my serious studies were nothing more than a bread-and-butter-related passion.
After a dozen or two years, I found almost all of them still happy in their misunderstanding of the essence of time. Their time, just like mine, is nearing expiration. But they don’t care. As one author puts it, “Men live as if they will never die.”
[1] Harvard Health Publishing. “Train Your Brain.” health.harvard.edu. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/train-your-brain (accessed September 3, 2022)
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