The Importance of Wasting Time
When I was a teenager, I spent my entire free time playing video games. Mostly League of Legends but also Call of Duty, Age of Empires, or Minecraft. This wasn’t a casual hobby. It was an obsession. I would come home from school, toss my backpack into the corner, boot up my computer, and play — often late into the night. School was secondary.
As I got older and played fewer games, I felt more and more daft. Others had spent their teenage years going out, experiencing things, getting to know themselves, and building relationships. And then, there was me. I had spent my young years commanding cartoon figures in virtual worlds.
Adding it all up, I must’ve spent over ten thousand hours playing video games. Ten thousand hours — that amounts to 20 hours per week for ten years or, say, 40 hours per week for five years. Ten thousand hours is also the time it takes to truly master a skill (at least according to one controversial study). If I hadn’t played video games, I could’ve mastered the violin, written a book, or competed in professional bike races.
But I didn’t. And the toothpaste of time can’t be put back into its tube. So, ostensibly, those ten thousand hours were frittered, flushed down the drain, and downright wasted.
