Wasting Time.

I was laughing at a comment made yesterday about my cycle run. That I would be wasting away with all that exercise. Now the strange thing about that was, I cycles with my wife and my friends wife. I do not know about my friends wife but my own wife assures me that having weighed herself before the cycle and again after it she had lost 1.5 lbs. I on the other hand had lost not one little bit. I am in fact the one that needs to lose a few pounds that I put on over the summer. 

So you could say a "Waist," or a waste of time. Maybe I need to keep cycle hard and stop having rests while waiting for her!

It started to men me wonder just how much of my life has been wasted doing things that are of little gain to me? Maybe I need to think about time management?

This reminded me of the story told by the wise sage.

A scholar asked a boatman to row him across the river. 

The journey was long and slow. 

The scholar began to become bored, the journey was taking so long. 

"Boatman," he said, "let's have a conversation." Suggesting a topic of special interest to himself, he asked, "Have you ever studied phonetics or grammar?"

"No," said the boatman, "I've no use for those tools."

"Too bad," said the scholar, "You've wasted half your life. It's useful to know the rules, so that you can speak wise words correctly."

Later, as the rickety boat crashed into a rock in the middle of the river, the boatman turned to the scholar and said, "Pardon my humble mind that to you must seem dim, but, wise man, tell me, have you ever learned to swim?"

"No," said the scholar, "I've never learned. I've immersed myself in thinking, and wisdom."

"In that case," said the boatman, "you've wasted all your life. Alas, the boat is sinking."

There are times when all the things we think are so very very important that we find that may not in fact be the case.