Mis-using time is the same as any other addiction. It is a way to avoid something. Drinking and using drugs are the most visible ways to “not be there” – to be mindless. But watching TV all day long, reading anything that isn’t educational, sleeping a lot, surfing the Web – these too have the same effect. They are ways to not be present and avoid living life. They are ways to not deal with reality.
Drinking and doing drugs aren’t more extreme or worse, because the result is the same – a life used up and wasted.
Time is like money – how you spend it is important. Just like in the parable of the talents, there will be an accounting at the end of our lives as to how we’ve spent our days.
We may not find the cure for cancer or write “the great American novel” – but we can add to the overall knowledge of humanity. We are in a relay race. One generation’s efforts get us closer and closer to breakthroughs. Einstein could not have discovered what he did without the efforts of scientists before him like Newton and Galileo.
betsybeadhead 