WRITING PROMPTS
Time is Never Wasted, Only Spent
A Taste for Life Weekly Prompts Edition 7, Prompt 7.
Time may be spent wisely or unwisely based on individual assessment, but it is never wasted.
A Brazilian student called me. I had never taught him before but his English was pretty good. After exchanging pleasantries as culture dictates, I found out that he was a philosophy teacher at a hybrid high school-college campus in Sao Paulo.
I prompted him to talk about what he was teaching his students at present as we launched into a discussion on the subtle differences between morals and ethics.
Somehow, we landed on time.
The student made a passing remark about “wasted time” and it was as if I were hearing those words for the first time.
This happens more often than you would think. When teaching concepts like the foundations of a language, the absurdity of certain structures astounds you, even as you try to encourage students to embrace the rules and the exceptions.
It’s not unusual for me to have a surreal moment as I, too, try to embrace the absurdity of my native language.
Hearing that simple phrase, wasted time, it hit me like a steamroller and my cognitive cogs started turning.
“There is no such thing as wasted time,” I heard myself saying, “only time spent.”
We subsequently launched into a discussion about the concept of time and how we use it. Ironically, time was running out on the lesson so our conversation was short but we could have explored it for another hour.
My next lesson was also a Brazilian student, an older woman and a regular of mine. Her English is highly advanced and I always enjoy my conversations with her. Again, a comment was made about wasted time. This student is almost sixty-five years old and was merely stating that her time is more precious now as she gets older.
“There is no such thing as wasted time,” I said again, “only time spent.”
We chatted about this concept until the end of the lesson and when it ended, I couldn’t stop thinking about the synchronicity of the same conversation coming up with back-to-back students.
As luck would have it, these were my last two classes for the day and as I headed out to stretch my legs on my evening walk in a local park, I started thinking more about the concept of time.
Where did the concept of “wasted time” even come from?
The philosopher and I had hedged a guess that it came in during the Industrial Revolution. I haven’t followed this idea up with a Google search or any form of proof but it sounds like something that the capitalist machine would have indoctrinated in us.
After all, if the rich don’t get richer off the backs of the poor, won’t society collapse all around us? Isn’t that how it all works?
I was born and raised in Africa and I can tell you that Africans do not have a concept of wasted time. No time is wasted in the Mother Continent.
Time is spent, that’s all — merely spent.
If you are enjoying what you are doing, how can it be wasted?
Whether binge-watching a TV series, going for a walk, staring out at the ocean, critter-watching in the backyard over a coffee, reading a book, or merely staring out the window of a plane, train, or automobile, it’s just time spent.
I admit freely that I’ve used the term wasted time plenty over the course of my fifty years hurtling around the sun, but now I question why.
Why do I feel that something I engage in willingly suddenly becomes wasted time once it’s over? Is it due to the fact that I should have been more productive with this precious commodity?
Why? Where did this concept of constantly needing to get something tangible done come from?
I can only assume it’s conditioning from the industrial machine.
Time is money after all.
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