On Wasted Days
It was 2pm, and I was severely behind schedule.
By this time, I was supposed to have done pre-reading for the afternoon’s tutorials, studied 100 Anki cards, replied to a few emails, and have eaten lunch. But I hadn’t done any of this, and my tutorial was very soon.
Instead, for the last few hours I found myself chatting to some friends in the common room. It began innocently enough – a “how’s your day going” here and an odd patient story there – until wings began to sprout and our conversation flew away. The topics we discussed had no bounds and no clear logic connecting them, yet we all seemed to go with the flow. Some topics were solemn and dark, others were ridiculous and free. I suspect we could have chatted until evening until somebody commented that they would be late for their 2pm class, and at last, our reverie was shattered, and we dispersed.
As we left I thought of all the tasks I set out to do that morning, all still there, undone. A pang of guilt began to rise as a protest against this laziness. I was the type to get things done, I thought. I had failed.
But then, as I began to examine the situation, I noticed how full my heart felt. I felt my brain buzzing with fresh ideas and new facts that broadened my world. I felt my jaw hurt from the giggling and hooting from our silliness. I felt, despite my unproductivity, at peace.
It is easy to define our days and our lives by certain parameters. Often, these parameters are set by expectations from those around us: how productive we should be, what our income should be, what our body should look like. If our days fail in these domains, we have wasted our precious time.
But when we step back and ask what this thing called life is about, what we will remember on our deathbeds, what we will be proud of when it’s all over, perhaps our parameters will become less robotic, and more compassionate. We might remember that an unproductive day in one area is a full day in another, and over the span of a lifetime, there is enough time to fill all our days with goodness. We might be reminded of the stories of the Tiger with the Strawberry, or the Mexican Fisherman playing with his children, and find the beauty of simply living each day with gratitude.
And we might be kinder to ourselves, for the saddest kind of person is a perfect one, and it is okay to fail once in a while, provided we fail well.