Thoughts on wasting time

[Trade]

"I wasted time and now doth time waste me"

From Shakespeare's Richard II.

"I wasted my time 'till time wasted me"

From Savatage's "When the crowds are gone."

 

[Murrmurr]

I intellectually understand what your saying, and even agree with it, but after a lifetime of working and having to make every minute count, I haven't been able to make the emotional change necessary to apply it to my life. I wish I could.

How long have you been retired, Mack?

I'm pretty sure I get what you're saying. I think what you have to do is redefine "accomplishment." It took me a few years to do that. To use an extreme example, I couldn't call serving up a bowl of veg soup with perfectly done potatoes an accomplishment when compared to recovering the body of someone's missing loved one, like back in my underwater salvage and recovery days.

That sounds ridiculous, but that's why it was so hard for me to mentally create a new column under the word Accomplishments. I was proud of that soup and its "perfectly cooked potatoes." Of course it helped that I got a lot of compliments from my dinner guests, but, safe to say, that was praise I'd never heard before in my entire life. And it was specifically that that got me to rethink what an accomplishment is.

And just like back when I was working, accomplishments like that don't happen every day. Minor achievements, comparatively speaking, but I finally realized the value-level was just perception....my perception, specifically....so comparisons are moot.

 

[dusty]

This happened with me when I retired. Rescuing people and saving animals at the shelter were my jobs and I lived for them. When I first retired I felt a huge hole, but gradually I got used to it. Now I gauge a successful day by what I do around my home.

 

[Gardenlover]

I've shared this before, one of my favorite art pieces, but I thought it would fit well in this thread.