This is old writing, originally published February 12, 2023.

When people say “I wasted my time,” they mean “something didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.”

As in:

• “I dated him for a year, but I wasted my time."
• "I tried fixing the table, but I wasted my time."
• "I applied for fifteen jobs, but I wasted my time.”

This is an inaccurate, discouraging, results-oriented attitude which will paralyze you. Imagine if a baby said “I tried walking, but fell every five minutes. After thousands of falls, I’m giving up; I wasted my time.” You’d scratch your head. You know that the baby did not “waste its time.” You know that the baby can definitely learn how to walk, and that the falls don’t matter. How do you help?

It would be silly to move their arms and legs for them, or to give them a detailed university lecture about human locomotion. You can’t directly teach a baby how to walk. So how do you convince them to keep trying, under their own power?

Pep talks like “just keep going, you’ll make it for sure!” sound cheesy and dishonest to somebody who’s grown cynical from nonstop disappointment.

Coaching — involving yourself in the feedback cycle — would be meddling at best:

• punishing the baby for falling will make them nervous and thus more unsteady
• providing external rewards for steps will miscalibrate their personal sense of balance and cloud their internal motivation

Of course, make sure the baby isn’t running on a concrete floor spiked with nails — falling shouldn’t result in real injury. But once that’s in place, to truly help the baby, you must inspire them. Give them the bigger picture. Tell them the truth:

HUMANS ALWAYS GET BETTER AT WHAT THEY DO

You’ll probably have to communicate this in five different ways before they start to understand. But once they internalize this truth, the baby will get right back to walking with a cheerful attitude about their falls.

Genuine efforts are not, and will never be, in vain. The more shots you take, the more targets you hit. Everybody starts out being terrible at everything. Skill is only born through excessive repetition. It takes immense patience to become competent at anything.

So what does it really mean to waste time?

Really, the only time you waste is the time you spend avoiding the things you truly want to be doing. Honest attempts are never wastes of time.