There’s No Such Thing as Wasting Time
You’re alive — that’s all that matters.
In an interview to the New York Times, the legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld said: “I waste a lot of time. That’s what people want me to do. To spend my time wastefully. So that I can then go and waste some more of their time…”
This goes against everything we were taught. We were conditioned by the media, glamour, success magazines, TV, school, parents, that wasting time is a sin. That those who waste time don’t get ahead. Don’t succeed. And end up alone, poor, and miserable. Potentially somewhere under a bridge.
The question then is, what is not wasting time?
Is it shuffling papers and sending emails? In a commencement speech, the author Neil Gaiman famously said, “At one point, I found myself professionally replying to emails. And so I stopped replying to emails. Hired somebody else to do it. And started spending more time writing books.”
Is it making more money? Saving it? Investing it? Working out yourself to the bone, so you can have a six-pack? Running around, chasing the approval of others? Getting more likes and followers on Instagram? Writing a novel that some people will read — but most will not even notice?
