Have you ever spent a long time doing something, or watching something on the TV or at the cinema, and at the end you think: “Boy wasn’t that a grand waste of time!!”
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You might have heard how amazing a particular movie or tv program is; you decide to check it out and throughout the program you keep wondering “when will the ‘good part’ start?” Or you hear of this ‘big sale’ going on at your favourite department store and you decide to go, only to find that it was nothing special after all!
This scenario can describe so many different things in our lives where we feel our lives have been a never ending ‘one step forward; 2 steps backward’ affair. In those instances you can be excused for wishing that you could ‘reclaim your time’, (and indeed, your money too) the time wasted in doing something that was, in essence, a waste of time and/or money.
Sometime ago I learned a simple yet profound response to what could be deemed a ‘bad experience.’ Basically it says, simply, that there’s no such thing as a bad experience; every experience, good or bad, is actually an EDUCATION!
I typically find myself using this most when I go to a new restaurant, or try a new dish, or go to see a much-hyped movie, and find them actually underwhelming. Of course sometimes my saying that is actually just a euphemism for what I actually feel is a bad experience! After all, who want to waste time and money on something they did not enjoy!
Life is all about living experientially. You cannot fully grasp or understand someone’s situation or their pain, or even their joy, without experiencing them yourself. But that does not say you cannot be really, genuinely, happy for them when they experience situations that bring them joy, or when they experience sadness and pain through loss!
Of course nobody sets out to in search of bad experiences. However, when those moments or situations come around, they can be correctly seen as something beneficial: lesson learned, or, put another way, an education.
Time lost can never be regained. So while life does not necessarily give you the opportunity to ‘reclaim your time,’ it does offer you the opportunity to take lessons from all your experiences and use them as moments of education. The value of this education, when applied appropriately to future endeavours, will far exceed the pain of a disappointment, whether it be a wasted trip to the movies or to your favourite department store.
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