"Time Wasted, Lost, Is Time Regretted: The Ordering And Passing Of Our Days"

 

“Time Wasted, Lost, Is Time Regretted: The Ordering And Passing Of Our Days”

 

 

09/14/12

 

To my very dearest friends, and stalwart, loyal readers,

 

All of us are—of course—ruefully familiar with the annual, posted lists of how much time we actually spend on a number of typical, human activities.

 

By now, everyone knows that, in sleeping eight hours each night, we use up about 121 days each year, or…a third of our lives!

 

And, if the average adult heart beats eighty times a minute, over the course of a year it will have done so some 3,839,800 times.

 

In the beginning, infants need only differentiate between cycles of light and dark, and when its time to be fed!

 

Even in Kindergarten, well-before we are able to understand ‘clock’ time, still, we are well-introduced to the various vagaries of time; from the first ringing of the school bell, to times for activities, naps, lunch, and—again—when it is time to go home.

By the time we have become adults, living in an adult world, too often we find ourselves very much aware of the clock, and of time passing.  Sometimes we even feel that we are chained to clock time, finding so much of our lives segmented into regularly occurring events that mark the passing of our days.

 

It is known—for example—that working eight hours a day for fifty weeks (taking out time for vacations!) roughly equals 107 days a year.

 

It then would reasonably follow that, if you sleep eight hours a day, and work another eight hours a day (not counting Saturdays or Sundays), nearly 228 days of any given year are used up.  That represents almost a third of our working, adult lives.

 

With the majority of our time given over to any number of normal, daily pursuits, is it any wonder why we often feel oppressed by the clock, chained to it, unable to escape, and to feel that we subsequently never have enough ‘time’ for our friends, our families, our selves, or, our souls?

 

How often do we repeatedly look at clocks around us, the watches on our wrists, or the time indicator on our computers? And, how often do we do so with a growing impatience, irked that time is either passing to rapidly, or, not nearly rapidly enough?

 

We give so much of ourselves—and our time—away in carrying out tasks, obligations, or needed chores, again, attendant upon living in an adult world.

 

Most of us are, regrettably, too caught up in the machineries of daily living, that we give scarce thought to time that is ‘wasted’ or ‘lost’, either in preparation, or waiting, or in the thousand delays imposed upon us outside our sphere of influence, or quite beyond our desire.

 

To give you an idea of how important dedicated, and ‘lost’ or ‘wasted’ time are, I submit—for your approval—the following calculations, subject, of course, to mathematical error, a scale of how much accumulated time in a year, the duration of these daily activities, and how much they actually impact our lives:

 

Activity Duration        Amount of time yearly

1)           1  sec.                  6 minutes

2)           1  min.                 6 hours

3)           10  mins.              2.5 days

4)           30  mins.              7.5 days

5)           1  hour                  15 days

6)           2  hours                 30 days

7)           8  hours                121.05 days m.o.l.

8)           12 hours                18.25 days

 

 

Granted, some daily activities can be overlapped (for example, one can read while waitinbg for one’s clothes to dry), still, between committed time (that which we knowingly dedicate in task completion), there are seconds, moments, instants of idle, slow, lost or wasted time.

It is therefore quite natural that we all feel ill-used by circumstance that would steal time away from us.  And please remember, while dedicated time may be disagreeable, but acknowleged as necessary to carrying out various aspects of daily life, and the social contract, other loses of time—whether imposed, accidental, or intentional, cause us to feel stressed, over-comitted, confused, angry, or sullen.

 

We want that time back; we insist upon it, even though in reality, we rarely do manage to get a time ‘bonus’.  Such time we would most like to keep for ourselves, either in pursuit of recreation or rest; or, just plain quiet!

 

Now, my dearest friends, to try to give you an idea of just very time-compressed we all have become, I list but some of the many activities of daily living, and—as able—to represent ‘other’ subsequent or consequent issues which cause one to lose time, waste time, or, misuse time.

 

Tasks and time spent daily:             Yearly eqiv.:

1)           Sleeping

2)           Bathing

3)           Dental Hygeine

4)           Meal preparation

5)           Meal consumption

6)           Hr. worked, if employed

7)           Transportation to and from

8)           Delays in above

9)           Homework

10)   Time with family

11)   Laundry prep.

12)   Laundry

13)   Grocery shopping

The above should include transportation time to and from store, time spent shopping, time spent putting groceries away

14)   On-line time

15)   Telephone messages

16)   Text messages

17)   Clothes shopping

18)   House cleaning

19)   Home repair

20)   Getting fuel for car

21)   Auto maintenance

22)   Hair care

23)   Time with pets

24)   Pet care

25)   Doctor’s visits

26)   Waitingroom time

27)   Restaurants

28)   Theaters

29)   Bookstores

30)   Furniture shopping

31)   Nap time

32)   Quiet time

33)   Time with relatives

34)   Time with children

35)   Time with friends

36)   Traffic lights, accidents, detours

37)   Reading

38)   Pursuing education

39)   Studying

40)   Writing

41)   Letters

42)   Pharmacy

43)   Medicine prep.

44)   Hospital E.R.

45)   Hospital stays

46)   Lawn care

47)   Various trips

48)   Vacations

 

Of course, my very dearest friends, some of the items listed above will never occur, piece-meal on a daily basis, but still may be included as percentage of yearly time spend, where applicable.

 

And…as so many lifestyles differ in terms of tasks, dedicated time, and missed time, some will certainly not apply; and I may have forgotten to list and item that may pertain to you.

 

I would kindly ask you to either ‘cut and paste’ the item list, and then fill in the times necessary where applicable, and then total—please—the separate time-spent values to reflect the accumulation of said values upon an average year.

 

In no manner is it my intention to intrude upon personal matters, or events that are not suitable for the public forum.

 

I DO think—upon analyzing time by way of task, and duration—that you will nevertheless be quite surprised to see how you personally allocate time every day, and—in consideration of possible ’wasted’ or ‘lost’ time—how very much, in consequence that it impacts upon already dedicated task time, and how much of each year of our lives they actually consume!

 

It is my fond hope that you may find this entry-- and its requested comments—to be fun, different, interesting, and personally revelatory!

 

And—as always—please, please know that I love you dearly!

 

 

‘Zahc’/Charles