Wasting Time Is Easy

Have you ever had that moment where you were enjoying what you were doing and really didn’t want the moment to end? Or have you ever had that time where you hated what you were doing and really couldn’t wait for the clock to move any faster, for the moment to end, and to be able to forget that ever happened?

Yeah, me too.

A FUNNY THING

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it.  You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” Harvey MacKay

Time is a funny thing. We say we don’t have it, we say we have too much of it, we wear things like watches to keep track of it, and we still have no idea what’s the best way to keep more of it.

But have you ever wondered what the definition of “time” is in the dictionary?

I never have tried looking it up so I decided to give it a shot. Turns out, there are a lot of different definitions and a lot of different ways in which we use the word “time.” We use “time” to describe a period in history, the hour of the day, a moment in our lives when telling a story, to describe or create a schedule, or even when we play a game. But I think I like the first definition I found best.

According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word “time” can be described as:

“the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or conditions exists or continues”

The first thing that popped into my head after reading this was life. That measured or measurable period that continues to exist could be life itself.

Wait, let me explain.

Though we do not know the exact amount of years a person will live, we do have an average life span seen throughout the years. We as humans, as long as we are breathing, are conditions that exist or continue. Humans are living beings and breathe air everyday.

Maybe that’s not how you viewed this definition. Maybe you see this as a stretch.

But as soon as I read this, my mind was blown. It’s crazy how we have a measurable period, called life, that we continue to live, or exist. It’s even crazier how that is the definition of time.

WHAT WE WANT MOST

We often say that we don’t ever have enough time. But the truth is, everyone has the same 24-hours in a day, the same 7-day weeks, the same 30 to 31 days in a month, and the same 12 months in a year. The real question to ask is: what are we doing with our time?

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn

I don’t think we realize how easy it is to waste time. We don’t value time like we should, and see or treat it as a dispensable object we will just get back, as something we can do with what we please with no consequences or affect on our lives.

But that’s not the truth. The truth is:

Scrolling is easy.

Binging Netflix is easy.

Watching Tik Tok is easy.

Reading and sharing posts on Facebook is easy.

Liking and commenting on Instagram posts is easy.

Becoming obsessed with what everyone else is doing is easy.

Getting drunk and wasted is easy.

Skipping class is easy.

Sleeping in all the time is easy.

Being lazy is easy.

Standing by and watching something unjust happen is easy.

Becoming drowned in our own self pity parties is easy.

Complaining about any and every situation is easy.

Gossiping about people you may not like is easy.

Playing video games all night is easy.

Looking over my plans is easy.

Watching the clock tick is easy.

Wasting time is easy

We all do it. We all see it as normal.

But here’s another truth:

Life is hard.

Life throws obstacles at you. Life makes you face hard situations. Life derails some of your plans. Life doesn’t allow you to sit down and do nothing if you want to get anything done.

Life gives you lemons. And instead of making lemonade out of it, we sit there, do nothing, and let time pass us by. We distract ourselves with things that temporarily keep our minds off of reality. We turn our backs to what we really should be facing.

THE MENTAL BATTLE

There have been so many times where I go to do things like homework, make an important phone call, or even go to bed. But then I pick up my phone and I look at all my notifications. And then I see ones from social media apps. Then I go on all the social media apps. And I scroll. And scroll and scroll and scroll. On each and every one of them. I get lost in the never ending pit that is social media because one thing always leads to another. And then I happen to check the clock and a couple of hours have already passed.

In my head I knew I was wasting time. But I didn’t know how to stop. It was easy to get lost for hours on social media or in a new show I was watching. It was so hard for me to get back to reality, to my real world, afterwards. I didn’t like that time was going by with me never moving forward from the place I was in, but I never wanted to face the hard situations in my life. I felt like I couldn’t.

I let life happen to me.

It was as if I was watching my own life pass me by.

It was and still is a huge mental battle for me. Maybe it is one for you too.

Where do I go now?

Eventually I got tired. I got bored of scrolling. I got bored of envying other people’s lives. I got bored of hating my life. But what else was there to do? I didn’t know where else to turn to.

MAKE THE CHOICE: The Real Hard Part

While realizing I was ignoring the things I should be facing, I also had to choose what to do next. Either I keep choosing to waste time, or I get up and take action, and take back my life.

The real hard part about time is not trying to get more of it. The real hard part of it is using it wisely. The real hard part is: not using it as a way to escape our lives.

Putting our phones away is hard.

Watching only one episode of our favorite show on Netflix is hard.

Staying in our own lane in our lives is hard.

Getting up early when you could be sleeping in is hard.

Wiping our tears away after a good cry session is hard.

Standing up for what’s right is hard.

Loving the people who hate you is hard.

Sharing the Gospel is hard.

Letting God’s plans overrule my plans for myself is hard.

Not wasting my time is hard.

But all are so, so worth it.

Maybe you don’t mind spending all day on a social media app. Maybe you don’t mind watching Netflix for your whole entire day. Maybe you’d rather not go to class. Maybe you’d rather sacrifice sleep to play a video game all night. Maybe you’d rather sit and talk about what’s going wrong in your life instead of doing something about it.

Either way, we are breathing and living and continuing to exist for a certain amount of time. It is our choice to decide to be different. We have to make the hard choice of not only doing the easy things.

The easy things may bring instant satisfaction, but the hard work will bring lasting transformation.

ETERNITY IN MIND

As a Christian, I am called to be and live different than how the world lives.

I have fallen into the trap of looking at this life as the end. But for me as a believer, that’s not true. I have eternity to think about.

Tomorrow isn’t promised. That isn’t a depressing statement as many think. That’s a reminder that you are here for a purpose and a reason, and should not take that for granted. That is a reminder that every moment counts. And that is a reminder of the future we have ahead of us after our life on this earth. It doesn’t end here.

Keeping eternity in mind means maybe doing the harder option of telling someone about Jesus, even when you may not have wanted to say you are a believer. Keeping eternity in mind means building and encouraging others instead of bashing them. Keeping eternity in mind reminds us to live by faith and not sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Even when our world seems nothing but dark and even when we may be hating the lives we are living, we have hope and faith in the light of the future and the light that Jesus does bring into our lives now, here and today. We remind ourselves of what is promised to believers instead of focusing on what the world gives us, unfulfilling, temporary distractions. There are so many things we can do to keep eternity in mind without devaluing the life we live here on earth.

When we keep eternity in mind, it helps remind us that we really don’t have time to be wasting.

Wasting time is easy. It’s time we stop only doing the easy thing.