“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
