It’s early morning by the river and my attention is drawn, from tired legs that don't like running, to the beauty of the willow branches softly bending over the smooth-running water.  The narrow leaves shine golden in the sunlight, moving and flickering with the wind and the ripples of the river below. I stop, entranced, full of awe. Absorbing the moment, the wonder of it all.  And a voice unbidden, comes into my head. Am I wasting time?

This voice is a familiar visitor, arriving frequently as I sit down to write, or try something new; a new activity, a new person to meet, new place to visit. 

It’s a small voice, but it’s used to being heard and taken notice of, and it makes me wonder what the big deal is about wasting time.  How do we know when we are wasting time?  More importantly, how do value how we use our time?  Most of us use some form of yardstick to decide what is a waste of time and what isn’t, but that yardstick may well have been designed a very long time ago, and not necessarily by us. 

If our lives are supposed to be purposeful, productive, making the most of the time we have here, then is it ok to walk by a river bank and lose oneself in its beauty, tentatively pick up a pen and start to write, mould a lump of clay into an unknown shape? Is it ok to explore, not knowing where you will arrive or discover on the way?

I experience the voice that warns me that I might be wasting my time as highly protective.  It doesn’t want me to spend time doing things that I might not be very good at, or not good enough at. It despairs of the amount of time I want to spend writing, putting together words that may not be readable, usable, or profitable in any way. Stopping to draw pictures is even further off the spectrum. It doesn’t want me to take risks, so it makes the fear that I may be wasting my time a first and major hurdle, to protect me from the potential risks of failure, disappointment, and rejection.

So for me, and I would guess for many people, we need to get over this fear of wasting time of we are to live life as fully as possible.  Using the word “wasting”, rather than spending time in more or less nurturing, constructive, loving ways, is a harsh assessment of ourselves. Free from this self- judgement, we can offer ourselves space to explore, to try out things, to learn, and to have more fun.

How do we let the magic in? 

There are many things that can help us get over this fear.

Get Older: I notice as I am getting older, particularly passing 60, the reality that time may be limited is a powerful motivator to get on with things.  If I have always wanted to write a book, then I need to start having a go, messing around with ideas now: next year isn’t going to be any better. Next year may not even be mine to enjoy.  Learning to play folk fiddle requires moving from the comfort of sheet music to the challenge of learning stuff by ear – and then learning to play it fast.  I'm not very good at this but I know that I want to do it.  It’s ok to try, to struggle, to be not particularly good at it.

Practice self-compassion.  One reason age helps is that we generally develop more capacity for self-compassion: the ability to be kind to oneself, to recognise one’s common humanity, and not to obsess about our inadequacies.  This can be a challenge for those of us who have been brought up believing that to achieve we need to push ourselves and beat ourselves up in the process. And of course, be very good….

One of the ways we can increase self-compassion is to ask ourselves what Love would say to us. We can even write ourselves letters from Love, as wonderfully demonstrated by Elizabeth Gilbert in substack.  There is even a whole website on Self-Compassion.

Do things you love (and stop to enjoy them). Spending time allowing ourselves to do things we love doing and to absorb the pleasure of this, whether a wonderful view, writing, getting muddy, the delight of music or birdsong, encourages ourselves.   It is nurturing and permission-giving to listen to the parts that tell us what really matters to us.

Let yourself play.  It can be hard to find opportunities to play as adults; and some of us may not have done much as children either. This is one reason why I have boxes of stuff in my consulting room: animals, stones, lego, fairy story characters, cars…. For one client, who we can call John, getting down on the floor with the cars was a turning point.  Can I tip them all out? He asks before delightedly doing so and lovingly lining them all up, appreciating their individual foibles, creating life in them that has been hidden in my cupboard and his soul.

You don't need to be in therapy to play, but you may need to give yourself permission to do so, even better if you can find someone to play with, to loosen up, have fun and escape from the tyranny of your own rules.

These rules were probably created by you a long time ago.  They may have been instilled in you by your parents and grandparents, they may have been a childhood response to making sense of the world. Schools do their best to educate the play out of us, with a few honourable exceptions, so by the time we have succeeded in navigating those hoops, found a job, found a way of living an “acceptable” adult life, it may be hard to retrieve that freedom and joy.

In conclusion 

When you feel you want to try something, do something new, and you meet the little voice suggesting it might be a waste of time, by all means stop to greet it.  You might challenge its arrogance in believing it can possibly know what is going to work out best.  But however you interact, walk on recognising that it just wants to protect you.  It’s a blunt instrument this protection, it doesn’t have to control you, and you may not need it any more.

Because there is so much life out there to try out. Having a go at something new may involve change, it may involve risk.  As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.  Whatever you have a go at may involve making a total mess of things, but you won’t know until you have tried it.