This Is What I Get For Staying Up All Night

So, it's 5am and I'm writing and listening to music, well actually, I was revising and re-writing but that's not the point...

Anyway, I'm listening to music and "Wasted Time" by The Eagles comes on. Now, I have always loved this song, so I'm singing along and editing at the same time. (I am the multitask queen...if I'm not doing three things at once, I feel like I'm slacking, or as the song title suggests, wasting time.

Okay, I'm digressing again...one more time...

I'm listening and singing to the song while I work. I'm enjoying the song, but I'm not paying particular attention to the lyrics...until these lines:

"I remember what you told me
Before you went out on your own
Sometimes to keep it together
You've got to leave it alone.
So you can get on with your search, baby
And I can get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find
That it wasn't really wasted time."

For some reason, those words hit me like a ton of bricks. Now, its obvious that Don (Henley the lead singer...man, y'all gotta get out more!) was singing about breaking up and feeling like the relationship was wasted time....but in how many aspects of our lives does the concept fit? How many things do we keep doing because, to stop doing so would be to admit defeat and, ergo seem like wasted time?

I'm not sure where I am going with all this, but follow along for a bit if you are so inclined. There are many things in my life that I do because I want to. And there are ten times as many things that I do because I have or need to. I wonder how many of those things would turn out to be wasted time if I were to stop doing them?

My bet would be very few. Because as a human being, I really only do the things I want to do. Even the things I have to. I mean, the only things I HAVE to do, to coin a phrase, is stay black and die. Everything else is optional. So, it stands to reason everything else I do, I do because I want to, whether it is out of misplaced allegiance or habit.

Yes, I do have a point...I'm getting there! The question that begs an answer is this: if I do these things out of habit, what do I get from them? The knowledge that I can do them or that I am getting better at doing them? The ability to tell others that I did this or that? What? What is really in it for me?

The questions were rhetorical. I have no real answers. All I know...well believe is that everything we do we do for a reason. We can always choose not to do them (except for the two afrementioned things..which by the way you can tailor to suit your particular nationality or race.)

Well, that's enough rambling for one evening. Oooh..A Whiter Shade of Pale...I might be back later...and before you ask, it's by Procul Harum. Man, do you guys live in a cave or what?
- posted by Kim @ 4:56 AM