'I don't have the time' is a sorry excuse and basically means: 'I prefer to spend my time in a different way than others.' We all are given the same amount of time. It's okay to watch Netflix, read, take long walks, play the guitar as a hobby...it doesn't mean you're not useful to society. Sometimes not standing in the way of others is a good contribution. Over the course of years (I was born in 1967) I've learned you don't have to be 'useful' all the time. But that wasn't always the case:
My most extreme busy day (I used to let life live me instead of vice versa) was when I got my son to the daycare center at 7 in the morning to be home for a meeting of the local Socialist Party fraction at my place because it would save me traveling time. At 08:15 I went to work, leaving my comrades with the dishes.
On my lunchbreak (back when I worked at The Amsterdam Dungeon. Great times: shouting at German tourists, telling Dutch tough guys to hand in their phones when the thing went of during the show and they answered the call, removing a Russian who actually drew a gun on me but I managed to usher out as the character I played...) reading a budget proposal for that night's counsel meeting, hurrying to the daycare center to pick up my son, picking up a pizza on our way home, waiting for the babysit, hurrying to that evening's counsel meeting, not waiting for the afterdrinks, calling the babysit to check if she and my son were okay, hurrying to a nightclub were I worked from eleven till four, coming home around five, finding the babysit asleep, take a shower, drink coffee, fixing breakfast for my son, the babysit and myself, walking to the busstop together, saying thank you and goodbye to the babysit, taking my son to afterschool and go to work.
Reading back how my life was I already get tired. How did I manage? For one, I was somewhat younger as this was around 2006.
Now I'm in my fifties I'm glad I've learned to enjoy a quiet afternoon at the waterfront, just contemplating, looking at the birds, the water and the clouds.
Without worrying for a moment people may not find me 'useful to society'.
I try not to have too many appointments but sometimes life doesn't agree with me and my agenda doesn't look like a series of appointments but more like a level in Tetris.
It will slow down again, I'm sure of it. This is just temporary.
Who decides who and what is useful anyway? Do you consider yourself useful to society?
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