Wasted Time

I wonder how much time is wasted every day.

I wonder how much time is wasted standing in line: To buy a meal, a ticket, to get into a concert or a convention or a sporting event, to use the toilet, to get a book signed, to stand in the checkout line, to get a discount, to see a movie, to use an ATM, to see a doctor or a dentist, to board a plane.

I wonder how much time is wasted in transit: Sitting on the bus, the train, the subway, the ferry, the taxi, the car, just waiting to arrive, a waiting so mundane and unimportant and worthless you'll forget it the instant it's over.

I wonder how much time is wasted just being bored: People sitting there, wishing their life was more interesting, ignorant to the abundance all around them, scrolling through Facebook and Youtube and Twitter and Facebook again, and then maybe Facebook a third time because maybe someone posted something I'll find interesting, even though that never happens.

I wonder how much time is wasted on stupid conversations: Conversations that don't and will never matter; mindless, rote dialogues that masquerade as human interaction but are really just meaningless exhalations forgotten within seconds; trite pleasantries and hackneyed platitudes worth less than the air they ride on.

I wonder how many breathtaking sunrises have been robbed of their glory by shitty, microtransaction-based cell phone games; I want to see precisely how many hours of human connection these games have stolen. How many hours of effort and productivity? How many hours of laughter and engagement? How many hours of doing something even remotely useful?

I wonder how many countless, painful hours people waste doing things they don't want to do just to pay a mortgage or a rent; I wonder how many dreams and souls have been crushed by this mindless tedium; I wonder how many people realize the absolute banality of their day-to-day existence as they slave away doing a job that a machine could easily do.

I wonder how many hours vanish due to carelessness or accident -- spilling a drink, forgetting a coat, misplacing the keys, losing a number, hitting the wrong button, dropping a camera, a typo in the paperwork, a misunderstanding.

I want to reclaim these hours, but I can't. All I can do is use what hours I have left, and, in light of all this wasted time, realize how precious my time is, and how amazing it is that I actually have any time at all, and to use it to do things that matter.

-Me