Wasting Time

What good conversations I've been having lately. It's been marvelous to discover something that's been quite life-altering and an unimaginable blessing: fellowship. No kidding, right? But just as everyone goes through periods in their life, we'd been going through a bit of a dry one in the friend-ship category this past year or so. Perhaps it was a busyness of life. Perhaps it was that people move and get married and have kids and what we've had in common with some people dissipates. . . either way, these past few weeks, it's been so nice to reconnect with some older friends and hang out with some newer ones and even forge some fledgling ones. I think it all began with a conversation I was having with a friend one evening. It went something to the effect of: "Hey, do you ever watch [insert name of some TV show here. . . not sure which one. Storage Wars perhaps]?" -Friend "No." -Me "Why not? It's such a great show!" -Friend "I dont' really watch much TV." -Me


Okay, so this is a fairly common thread of conversation and has been these past 8-10 years or so (since going to college, really). I'm just not a big TV watcher. It made me wonder to myself why this was and why didn't I regularly watch any other TV than the 5:00 news? The answer came to me quite quickly, really: It's A Waste Of My Time. Not to judge. I know plenty of people who watch gobbs of TV and I'm not implying that this is worse than not watching at all. I spend my time in other ways, often not much more productive. Sometimes I surf the Internet (wikipedia is a time-sucker. . . as is ehow.com). I edit photos. Okay, that's not a waste of time. I read books. Some times this is a waste of time (like now. I'm reading Pride & Prejudice and Zombies. I think Aimee asked me the other day something to the effect of how could I live with myself that I am reading it. . . I told her I wasn't sure.)

Okay, so you might ask, what Isn't A Waste Of Time? I have a simple answer to this question. To me, I judge something as Not A Waste Of Time if it benefits me/my spirit/my body in some way or if it benefits somebody else. Next month, Jered and I are going down to Joplin to help with the ongoing relief. I didn't even know they still had quite a massive effort going down there but they do. Jered and I were getting quite tired of Wasting Our Time on such frivolities and niceties and vanities of life and Jered set us up to go help some people out for three days of our summer. It's not too long-- we had to fit it in with our work and weddings. But I'm looking forward to getting out of myself for a while.


Jered and I had the chance to visit some old friends when we drove out to Emporia last week. We probably wouldn't have left if we didn't have to work the next day, we had such a good time. Then I had the chance to hang out with some gal pals from work while we "watched the Olympic Trials" (the quotes are b/c we didn't really *watch* much). Last night I had the great blessing of hanging out with some ladies from church and then go out to DQ with a wonderful young lady from our youth group. There was not a moment yesterday that was wasted. Today I wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life watching "The Doors" by Oliver Stone. Not really in the mind frame lately to watch a movie about someone who lived a life entirely devoted to selfishness and ended up destroying himself with drugs and alcohol. Yeah, little too close to home, thankyouverymuch.

Although, on a positive note, we spent a very lovely 2 1/2 hours at Dad & Lisa's house. We swam and talked with Lisa and even got a chance to say Hey to Dad. Not a waste of time. Quite the opposite.

Life is too short. I'm tired of wasting it. I'm tired of letting these days and moments slip by though my fingers and not making them count for something. I'm tired of not sharing life and hope and taking in wisdom and love when I can. Why do we spend time and effort on those who only drain us and leave us feeling more parched? Why do we do the things that destroy us over and over and over? They don't fulfill us. They don't grow us. They're garbage and they need to be taken to the curb. We need to open the windows of our soul and fling open the doors of our consciousness and take each moment and thought captive and create our own destiny. We know what's right. We know what fills us with Light. We know what gives us hope and joy and peace. Why do we spend so much time and money on what doesn't?

Silly us.