And.... more shopping

Saturday:

Family Christmas shopping day. We bought things for extended family and also a couple of things for each other that we wanted direct input on (I can't give examples because I immediately wiped my memory of the perfect sea-green handbag I helped choose).

Tim's cousin Matt was playing guitar and singing on the stage at the rooftop restaurant area. It is crowded at night but not so much in the middle of a hot day, but there were a few people. We had our lunch and listened a bit while taking a break. He has a nice voice, at the moment he has actually left work to try to make a career of singing. It's a tough field to break in to. But I guess right now - with a wife who is working but no kids to support yet - is the best time for him to try.

Can I just interject for a moment here that I hate Windows 10. Since we downloaded it everything has been not just different, but difficult and wrong. Such a pain. Can't do anything I want to do. I suppose I'll get used to it in time. It only took me about 30 minutes to upload that photo from my phone, this time.

I was pondering this morning the concept of "wasting time". Some people think time is wasted if there is nothing tangible to show for it. I like to spend some of my time on mindless relaxation, like playing games on my phone. Is it wasted time if I enjoyed it? I don't think so. Sure if I cut out fiddling with my virtual farm, playing World of Warcraft, watching TV, I would have many hours more "productive" time each day. But would life be as pleasurable?

Tim has a friend who spends months of each year travelling. He only works enough to fund his next trip overseas. He has no settled home or long term relationships (as far as I know, I haven't seen him except on Facebook for a while). Are his safaris to Africa and travels through Asia wasted time because he has no home, no assets, no wife or children? I admit that what seemed like an awesome lifestyle (but not for me) in his 20s no longer seems quite so practical now that he must be approaching or over 40. But it's how he wants to live, and I wouldn't say he's wasting his life just because he's buying experiences instead of physical things. As long as he can afford a virtual reality headset when he's old and too frail to travel, he can settle down happily in cheap rental accommodation and relive his memories through brain stimulation or whatever they have then.

Other people would say spending your days in a stressful mind-numbing 9-5 (or 8-6) job is wasting your life. Why hate your days just to earn enough money to buy stuff you have no time to enjoy?

I think the only time you waste is the parts that are neither fun, nor productive. A boring but valuable task is fine if you get it done. An enjoyable interlude is fine even if it doesn't result in anything (other than relaxation!) Earning money for yourself, helping other people, making connections with family and friends, playing games, exercising your body, expanding your mind, relaxing, all good. It's those days when you sit at home feeling lonely and miserable (hopefully rare in our lives) that are the wasted ones.