The Art of Wasting Time Well

May 26, 2025

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Relaxing might be the most productive thing you do all week…

But no… they’ll tell you to wake up at 5 a.m... throw ice in your face… hit your targets... hustle harder!

You’ll hear that rest is “earned,” not something you get to just do... and that your value comes from how efficiently you extract constant output from yourself.

They want you to optimize every hour of your day like your soul is slave to a stopwatch...

Well… it’s not. Your soul hates the stopwatch… in fact, that pressure can kill it if you aren’t careful.

Rest is not something you have to repay later... you don’t owe the world a productive day before you can sleep without shame.

If that’s you… take a breath, and touch grass.

You’re not broken… you’re not lazy... you’re not wasting time.

You’ve just been carrying too much… sometimes things we were never meant to carry at all , as this world has a way of trying to make every problem, your problem…

but… you don't owe anyone.

“Should We Be Doing This?”

Some of my best ideas started with that very question… and came when I was doing absolutely nothing planned... just aimlessly messing around, half-bored, half-curious, accidentally creating something cool af...

Many times the best things happen not just by accident, but also while not trying to do anything at all... just being creative, chaotic, and of course a bit messy.

That late-night YouTube hole you fell into…
that random doodle you made on a napkin...
that long shower where your brain drifted...
or that deep conversation you almost didn’t have because you had to stay up til 3am to get to it…

What about that weird side project you built because it made you happy... people look at those things as wasting time, because none of it looked productive on paper.

One of the hardest things was to actually allow myself to do them anyway, and at first it made me feel so guilty…

But I learned to cherish those moments… because that’s where the good stuff lived... that’s where I actually got to actually feel alive… and that's where I not only found my best ideas, but also built my most valuable skills.

Hard Work Doesn’t Mean Big Rewards

You can actually hustle your way right into a corner you can’t pivot out of, and hate EVERY minute of it… then get stuck there for decades, or even a lifetime…

A soul sucking daily grind, routines, or a color-coded calendar?… those things don’t interest me.

I want to know when you last lost track of time doing something that had no purpose or reason on paper, but made your brain light up, got you excited and "pulled you in."

Creativity is chaotic, unpredictable, leaves messes everywhere, and is and deeply inconvenient to "normal" people. You’ll have days when you are possessed by a flow state so intense you forget to eat, drink, sleep, or tend to anyone’s needs, including your own.

And then you’ll have weeks when nothing clicks and you feel completely useless... that’s not failure, many times it’s simply the cost of making things that matter.

That type of rest is not just a break from the work... it’s part of the work... because ideas need room to breathe.

In those moments, let yourself wander into weird corners of the internet or go full mad scientist mode on a random idea you’ll probably never finish… stop thinking everything needs to be serious, structured, and marketable.

Seriously... you’re not that important.

And for the record, consistency means nothing if you’re not growing... you can be consistent at stagnating… and honestly… this is what most people do!

What if change is the real discipline? What if the most consistent thing you do is refuse to stay in the same rut? Yeah...

It’s OK to Get a Bit Weird

Bukowski said it like this:

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

So, yeah… go a little crazy... make messes... explore, and learn to rest…

And inside that rest… in the quiet, in the stillness, or in the distractions… finally let yourself breathe, because that’s where the magic tends to actually show up.

Not in the pressure cooker or the checklist or in the perfectly color-coded schedule.

But in the moment you stop trying so hard to force it…

Your mind wanders… your heart opens… and suddenly… there it is.

The idea, the clarity, the connections… the right people with whom you actually resonate.

And that changes everything.

Learn to Just Let Go

I’ve been there… the walking embodiment of an anxious overachiever… putting myself under invisible pressure, always measuring my worth by my output.

Even my rest had to be productive… my joy had to be earned…

It’s strange... but we tend to glorify the struggle.

We’ve all seen the underdog montage of the broken-down guy training his way to glory by beating the shit out of himself…

but no one ever taught us how to rest well, and without feeling guilty for it.

No one ever told us that sometimes the real discipline isn’t pushing harder, but it’s letting go.

Success Shouldn’t Require Hiding Your Misery

From the outside, maybe you’re killing it… impressing everyone with your huge list of titles and accomplishments… your life looks like a dream…

but inside, you’re dragging this heavy, quiet panic around every day...

A sense of dread, like you’re already behind before you even wake up.

You might even be building something great, maybe even for the right reasons…

but even then… please, don’t build it from inside misery.

Just come undone sometimes… let the pressure slip off your shoulders for a bit… let the sun hit your face without guilt.

Your worth was never in how much you get done in a day.

And maybe the risk was never in “wasting time”... but in striving to do all the things that suck your soul dry…

and never getting the chance to use that time to do things that matter to YOU.

Alright, that was all for now Rebel.

By the way… only a few know where the Rebel Speakeasy is. And now you’re one of them—grab a drink and let’s talk. We meet every Wednesday in live audio spaces on X.