Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Wasting Time

My blog's been neglected, but I got a nudge from my niece to post something, so here goes.

My daughter, (we'll call her N), left Blue Like Jazz (by Donald Miller) on the table next to me. I picked it up, but was forbidden from reading beyond her book mark. She's like that -very specific in her commands, but surprisingly vague about herself. For instance, she'll say, "You have to drive me to beauty school." I say, "When?" She answers, "I don't know." Then any length of time later (a few minutes, a couple of hours, the following day...) she suddenly says, "I have to go NOW. Come on, get in the car!"

Sorry, I've strayed from my original point. In this book Donald Miller writes ...(drat, I can't find the exact quote. N has this weird thing about not writing in books) anyway, it says something about the devil spending more energy on getting us to waste time rather than tempting us to do actual evil. I thought that was very poignant, very C.S.LewisScrewtapeLettersish. Sitting on my butt playing solitaire is a complete waste of time. I could be cleaning, praying, reading to the kids, writing my novel (Now some would say, and I won't give any names **my husband** that writing my novel was a waste of time. ).

But the point I'm unsuccessfully making is that if you suddenly realized this was your last moment alive, will you be glad you'd just spent the past four and a half minutes making Harry Potter icons for your LJ (ha ha, sorry N) or do you wish you'd made that phone call to the friend you've been neglecting, baked cookies with your little brother, or wrote a love note to your husband? ...just a thought.

p.s.
Of course, insert your own examples if you don't have a husband and if your little brother is 68... not that 68 year olds don't enjoy baking cookies. I'm just saying...never mind.

5 comments:

Aubrey said...

This was a beautiful post! I whole heartedly agree with your sentiments. Thanks so much for sharing...

Oh and writing a novel isn't a waste of time at all! ;)

The Geeky Quill said...

Thanks Aubrey! :)

J T said...

I read this when you first posted it last week, and honestly thought "this does not apply to me". However, it stayed in my mind and I did became aware of a lot of things I do that are a waste of time. This week, I have used the computer a lot less (by computer I mean watching pointless mildly amusing videos on youtube), and read and studied more.
So, good post! Made me think.

Kara Hartz said...

Novel writing is definatley not a waste of time. Now, starting and then half-writing a ton of short stories. . . I'm trying to convince myself that isn't a waste of time either.

And neither is negelicting other chores while I read your whole blog in one sitting. Very important.
Sorry to your inbox for the flood of comments. I'm stopping myself here. The archive posts will have to wait for another day.

The Geeky Quill said...

Hey Kara, I want to read your stories, finished or not. :)

Jasmine, right on!