Go Ahead – Waste Some Time!

As I peruse various articles from the “self-help experts”, I am amazed at how often I run into the admonition to stop wasting time. Create a daily “To Do” list, prioritize, and do, do, do. Get stuff done. Don’t get sidetracked. Remember your goals. Try to keep on schedule. Go, go, go! Keep moving. Stick with the plan. Do you want to succeed or not? Keep going – and for cryin’ out loud, STOP WASTING TIME!

Yeah, I know. It’s good for any of us to set goals for those things we’d like to accomplish in life and it also makes sense to at least sketch out a basic action plan to achieve those goals. For some of us, it can also be beneficial to lay out a daily “To Do” list as a reminder of some of the things we really should get done today - as long as we don’t get carried away and start regarding our list as a sacred scroll. As the main controlling factor in our lives that we must follow no matter what.

It’s my personal opinion however, that there comes a time when we need to close the daily planner, shut off the PDA and just goof off. Let’s face it. Many of us are well on our way to becoming spazz cases. Over-driven zombies fueled by mind-soothing drugs and blood pressure pills along with an assortment of other even less desirable “medications”. That’s not good.

What happens when you keep using the old cell phone - call after call and day after day without putting it on the charger? The answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Our phone simply quits working. It’s much the same way with us. Oh yeah, we can keep on pushing, sometimes for quite a while. Somewhere along the line though, we’re going to quit working too. Maybe not to the point where we’re ready for the great recycle bin in the sky but you can about bet that something is going to start deteriorating. Perhaps it will be our health, our emotional stability, our relationships with our friends and family – something is going down the tubes. Just like our cell phone, we frequently need recharging too.

One of the best ways to get our old batteries re-energized is to take a periodic “time out” to yes, waste time and just goof off. Just for clarification, I view “wasting time” is doing anything that we personally enjoy doing that takes less than five minutes of preparation. No, spending three days getting ready for a trip to the beach with the kids – and then going to the beach - is not wasting time. It’s taking a vacation which hopefully will be fun and not too stressful.

To me, wasting time is doing things like going for a short walk, kicking back and listening to music, reading, sitting on the front porch watching the squirrels in the pecan tree or even watching something mindless on TV. Not uncommonly my TV time will turn into nap time which, come to think of it, is just about the ultimate in goofing off. Quite refreshing…

If it’s done strictly for the benefit of relaxation, some folks enjoy drawing, painting, sculpture, working with crafts or playing a musical instrument while others may get a re-charge through gardening or woodworking. As long as the thing we’re doing is something we really enjoy and is done because we “want to” as opposed to “need to”, I think we can safely log it under the general category of wasting time. To be real honest, it doesn’t make a heck of a lot of difference what we’re doing as long as we are stepping back from the stress-producing stuff in our lives to take some time for ourselves.

Stress – from all kinds of different pressures - is frequently considered to be America’s number one health problem. That’s no reason it should be our problem though. So? So stop reading this stuff and go waste some time! Now would be good…

Important note: If you’re feeling really stressed out, it would probably be a good idea to do something about it by paying a visit to your friendly physician or health services organization. Think about it.