𝘾 𝙖 𝙡 𝙢 🌼 A Pocket Guide To Breathe Easy

i feel i waste my time and it depresses me

The problem.

Whenever I have an afternoon when I have nothing to do, and I do nothing, I feel worse than bored. I feel I am wasting my time. But the less I do, the less I want to do something. I feel I waste my time, maybe even my life, and it depresses me.

The Zen understanding.

The Zen Buddhist thinks we live too fast. There is so much mindless competition for money in the world, for fame and glory, yet none of it leads to any kind of contentment. If you are always moving onto the next task, what time do you really have to enjoy your life while it's here?

You have families, friends, pets, a beautiful life. Spending time with these things is not a waste of time. Meditation is not a waste of time. Even sitting totally still, just noticing you are alive, is not a waste of time.

Yet, a Zen Buddhist does believe that watching endless amounts of TV and scrolling through social media is a waste of time. A distant, voyeuristic relationship with things on a screen rarely brings you back to yourself. The more you exist outside your body, the less control you have over your life, and isn't it obvious?

Say you are invested in a person on a reality TV show. Say they are wronged or cheated. Now you feel wronged and cheated as well, and what can you do about it? Nothing, because that is not your life. You could die that moment, having lived and breathed that TV show, and yet nobody on that TV show will know that you are gone. They exist only to you; you do not exist to them. Even if you participate in their live stream, their concert, or write them, this is not like knowing and living with somebody.

Many people live in anger about lives and communities they have little to no control over. This is the toxicity of fandoms, the foolishness of celebrity obsession, the hatred of cliques, and the inhuman numbness of exclusive organizations.

The Zen application.

A Zen Buddhist knows the difference between wasting time and coming back to ourselves, and Zen Buddhist is more than happy to practice the latter: to slow down and smell the flowers. It is the very reason we are alive. A Zen Buddhist does not disguise their love and compassion for their family, friends, and community. It is now or never.

When a Zen Buddhist reads, we read something inspiring or literary, cerebral or uplifting. This might be a sutra, a guide, or a good intelligent story. These things are also not a waste of time, because they help us to explore ourselves and to learn about loving others. To a Zen Buddhist, stories that ask questions of us, and teach us, are superior to cheap drama and action stories.

This is not to say that a lay Zen Buddhist never does anything numbly fun, like watching something pointless on TV. But a Zen Buddhist recognizes time spent this way and limits it as much as possible. Spending time this way is to fight a swallowing tide, and a Zen Buddhist knows the danger of becoming addicted to it. A Zen Buddhist would sooner leave a fandom than see it disturb their peace of mind.

And when a Zen Buddhist rests or meditates, we know that we are doing something critically important: we are stopping our circumstances from running away with us. A Zen Buddhist believes that those obsessed with contentment in the future will not find it, because no moment you live in is ever the future, because the future is always yet to come.