In praise of wasting time

As a freshman who is still confused about how I got into the University, I naturally waste a lot of time. I invest at least an hour chatting in the dining hall every day, and I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent just debating with friends about completely inconsequential things, ranging from whether white shoes are worth the money to what kinds of laptop stickers I should buy from Redbubble.

The truth is, though, that these moments — regardless of their “utility” — make me happy. While society, and in particular, my parents, may label spontaneous Wawa trips or playful conversations with my friends as perfect examples of “wasting time,” it is undeniable that these small bursts of wastefulness are what define the Princeton experience for me.

And so, I want to tell everyone that it’s okay to waste time. In fact, not doing so detaches us from the real world.

As students at the University, we tend to set a very high bar for ourselves when it comes to achieving happiness. We don’t think of impromptu table tennis games or spending time with our special ones as “legitimate” methods of achieving satisfaction. Instead, we have grandiose ideas for what we think are more sustainable, long-term, and thus “better” forms of happiness: having a good GPA, getting a prestigious internship, having a high-paying job, etc.

The problem with this line of thought is neither that these goals are unattainable nor that they are bad to have. It’s rather that in the process of aspiring towards the goals, we often forget that we are allowed be happy on the way too — that something doesn’t need to be of monumental importance in order for it to qualify as worthy enough to make us happy. We thus feel guilty about being on our phones or gossiping with our friends; they feel like counterproductive diversions from our grand journey towards a more perfect happiness.

But happiness does not have a perfect endpoint. Just because you get a Goldman Sachs internship doesn’t mean you will be happy for the rest of your life — new problems will always arise. This is true regardless of where we end up; I may have been ecstatic about getting accepted to the University just a few months ago, but now, the happiness has faded to stress over how terrible my midterms grades are.

The point is, what we often label as “wastes of time” are not different from what we believe are “better” sources of happiness. This is not to say that we should completely abandon our grades in favor of browsing through Instagram all day. But if the abstract idea of happiness is what we all aspire towards in life, then we should not feel guilty about doing the kind of things that make us happy, whether they be small or large.

Moreover, these “wastes of time” may prove to be even more valuable than one expects. During social interactions, or even in the process of letting our thoughts wander about independent from the streams of readings and problem sets we grapple with, we are exposed to new ideas and general ways of living. It also gives us time to reflect upon our surroundings and take an introspective bird’s-eye view of the direction we take in life — goals we assumed were naturally right, interests we presumed we were supposed to have. In particular, some “alone time” has been found to be essential to recharge, giving a greater consciousness to act more effectively in the real world.

So take those naps that you feel like you shouldn’t be taking. Talk with your friends about random things, whether it’s celebrity gossip or political discussion. Watch a movie on Netflix that you think is too long to fit in your schedule. Maybe they will be life-changing, but even if they’re not (which will probably be the case), at least they made you happy.

Jae-Kyung Sim is a freshman from Sejong City, South Korea. He can be reached at j.sim@princeton.edu.