Nothing Is Wasted
On time, detours, and the story we tell about our lives
In a year, there are 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours and 31,536,000 seconds.
And yet, time does not feel consistent.
Sometimes it rushes past us. Other times it stretches out, slow and spacious. A single afternoon can feel endless, while an entire year can disappear in what feels like a breath.
Time, at least as we experience it, is deeply linked to productivity.
In our modern lives, we can achieve more in a single day than our ancestors could in weeks. Emails sent in seconds. Money transferred instantly. Meetings across continents. Output is constant. The expectation of output is even more constant.
Whether we like it or not, much of our perceived worth is tied to how much we produce — and at what price.
If you make more money, you are often perceived as more successful. If you make less, your value can feel — or be treated as — lower. This is not about judging people who earn well. We all need money. A decent quality of life is expensive. Survival requires participation.
But perhaps part of why so many of us feel worn out is not weakness — it is overload.
We are trying to do too much in too little time.
I sometimes have visions in meditation of riding a horse across a vast landscape. No notifications. No urgency. Just movement and breath and horizon. In those moments, time has an entirely different flavour. It feels wide. Uncompressed.
People in the past likely had a very different relationship with time. Their lives were harder in many ways — war, physical labour, scarcity. This is not nostalgia. But their days were structured around survival and seasons, not digital comparison and performance metrics.
Today, social media intensifies everything. We do not only measure ourselves against our neighbours — we measure ourselves against thousands of curated lives.
So what are we to do?
Perhaps we begin by asking ourselves what it actually means to live a productive and meaningful life.
How much do we truly need to feel content?
I am not suggesting we all retreat from society or renounce ambition. There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself. There is nothing wrong with wanting success. But how many of our desires have been carefully planted there by clever marketing? How many of our “needs” are borrowed?
Up until now, your life has been what it is.
I recently heard about someone who felt they had wasted most of their life. That feeling is understandable. Many of us have had it at some point. But this — all of it — is your life. Nothing is wasted. Even the detours. Even the years that felt slow or confused.
We cannot change the past. We can only change the story we tell about it.
What matters is what you choose next.
You do not have to be relentlessly productive unless you want to be. And if you do want to build, strive, and create — there is no shame in that either. But your inability to afford certain things is never a reflection of your worth.
Perhaps the better question is not, “How much can I produce?”
Perhaps it is, “How can I contribute?”
How can I be useful? Helpful. Grounded. Present. Someone who leaves people slightly better than they found them.
Time is the only thing we truly have.
And how we relate to it shapes everything.
If this resonated with you, there’s more where that came from.
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