Wasted Time Reflection

—

ゆっくりと
こぼれ落ちた時
気づかずに
dripping slowly—
time slips by unnoticed,
until it’s gone.

—

There was a time I thought sleeping in was a failure. That lying down in the middle of the day—even if my body begged for it—meant I was weak, lazy, falling behind.

Productivity was a virtue. And rest? Rest was just the void between two achievements. A necessary evil, like eating or using the bathroom. Something to be minimized, managed, tucked in the folds of “efficiency.”

I used to chase time.

And like most chases, it ended with me exhausted, clutching only the edges of what mattered.

—

The shift happened slowly. A kind of erosion. Not a single event, not a revelation. Just a hundred quiet reminders. Days I felt burned out without having done anything memorable. Moments I forgot how I even got from one room to another.

One day, I was walking through Bern—somewhere between errands. I’d just come back from a trip to Slovenia. I was rushing, always rushing. Crossing the bridge near Rosengarten, I caught my reflection in the glass of a tram. And for a second, I didn’t recognize myself.

Not because I looked different. But because I wasn’t in the moment. I was halfway through a to-do list that hadn’t even started.

The rest of the day passed like a fog. Emails. Calls. Groceries. But it all felt the same—gray, frayed, forgettable.

That evening, I tried something. I lay on the floor. Just lay there. No book. No phone. No purpose.

I stared at the ceiling. Noticed the tiny crack forming where the white paint met the edge of the lamp. Heard the radiator click once. Then again.

Time slowed. Stretched. Softened.

And it didn’t feel wasted.

—

Nowadays, what I consider “wasted time” is different. It’s not the nap. It’s not the quiet walk. It’s not sitting on a park bench watching two birds bicker over a crumb of bread.

What feels wasted now is rushing. Being caught in the in-between.

It’s scrolling on my phone while walking down the street, missing the lilac blooming on the wall I’ve passed a hundred times. It’s half-listening to someone while composing a reply in my head to a message I haven’t received yet.

It’s the fragmentation of attention—the way I used to believe I could multitask joy.

Spoiler: you can’t.

—

I remember a time in London, years ago. I had thirty minutes between two trains at Victoria Station. I bought a coffee. Checked my phone. Opened a book but didn’t read. The time vanished. Not rested. Not enjoyed. Just… disappeared.

Contrast that with another layover, years later, in Regensburg. I had forty minutes to wait. Sat by the Danube. Watched ducks. Ate a sandwich from a local bakery. Rye bread, too much mustard.

That time didn’t vanish. It settled inside me.

The same forty minutes. But one was a blur. The other—a place I can still return to.

—

This isn’t a manifesto against phones or planning or trying to get things done. It’s just a reminder that time is only wasted when it’s forgotten. When we’re not in it.

Even ten minutes, if lived fully, can be richer than ten hours spent drifting.

—

When I was living in Ljubljana, in a small apartment near the main bus line, I used to feel guilty if I didn’t pack every hour. Every slot had to mean something. Study. Work. Socialize. Clean. Learn.

And then I met someone. A flatmate. Quiet type. He once told me:

“You know, people here think staring out the window is a waste of time. But in my country, we call it thinking.”

I laughed. Then I tried it.

He was right.

—

Years later, in Tokyo, I found myself in a tiny kissaten in Shimokitazawa. Wooden counter. No menu. Just the owner behind the bar, slow-dripping coffee in silence.

He looked at me and said:

“Too many people rush coffee. That’s not coffee. That’s liquid stress.”

We sat there, two strangers, not talking, just watching the steam rise.

It was the best coffee I ever had.

Not because of the beans. Because it had time inside it.

—

Wabi-sabi Lesson

Imperfect moments, lived fully, are more lasting than perfect plans rushed through.

Slowness is not a lack of productivity. It’s the texture of presence.

You don’t have to be efficient to be alive.

The cracks in our schedule—the pauses, the unfilled gaps—are not mistakes. They’re windows.

We forget this, often. Until someone reminds us. Or until we remember for ourselves.

—

If you ask me now how I waste time, I’d say:

I don’t waste time by sleeping. I don’t waste time by resting. I waste time when I don’t notice that I’m alive.

So here’s to the small benches. The unhurried coffee. The walks with no destination.

To letting the sun touch your shoulder like a question.

To stopping in the middle of nowhere and saying: “This, too, is worth my time.”

—

You can’t always catch time. But you can stop chasing it. And sometimes, when you stop— time returns to you.