On my patio, birds alternately sing to each other and furiously jostle for position on my bird feeders. Baby birds in a nest above my kitchen window chirp at their mother for food.
The inexplicably comforting smell of wet grass rides a gentle breeze through my open window and fills my office with memories of childhood days when spring was warm enough to play in the hose with my brother and sister.
A few houses up the street, a lawnmower drones on, more of a resonant hum than an actual sound.
My dogs, until recently chasing each other all over the house and through the open doors into the yard, sleep on the floor, their favorite rope toy between them.
I have a ton of work to get done before I leave for Phoenix tomorrow, and I'm feeling more than a little stressed out and overwhelmed. I'd hoped that taking a few moments to appreciate the peace and serenity around me would have calmed me down, but now I just feel like I've wasted time I should have spent working.
Dejected arr.
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Don’t give up hope. You can do it. One task at a time until they are all done, then at least you get a reward (as opposed to, say, driving cab at night!)
Such moments are never wasted Wil. There are the ergs of that power our souls. You can be too hard on yourself, don’t be.
(Now if you spent a couple hours on Red Dead that would be a different matter.)
Encouraging arrrrr!
As an inveterate procrastinator, I know that feeling very well indeed. You’re only wasting time by worrying about the time you’ve already spent. I’ve found that the best cure is to knuckle down and start grinding- make a list of objectives, focus on the first one, and just chug chug chug up the hill until you’ve plowed through them all. It’s not pretty, and it’s not fun, but you’ll get it done. You’re a successful person for a reason.
Go outside and shoot the birds. Then run across to that guy with the lawnmower and wrestle him to the ground, making him swear he’ll never mow his lawn again.
That should give you the peace you need to work in.
Good luck.
When I get in that headspace of OMG So Busy I Must Carefully Schedule When To Pee, I remind myself that I’m not a doctor or a cop. No one will die if I take a couple of minutes to slow down and breathe.
Dont i know Wil sun is splitting the stones out side and im in here studying for my exams for school,thats life !!
The feeling that time spent relaxing is time wasted is a very familiar refrain.
If you need time out then the time spent relaxing is equally valuable in comparison to the time spent working. In fact, the work is informed by the serenity that can be found in relaxation…with one condition. That you don’t then feel the chill out was a waste of time. That only serves to stress you out further and makes that time out a real waste.
Best of luck Wil, keep in mind that there are a few thousand of us standing right with you.
Cheer up little camper! You’ve got an awesome family and an awesome job. Many people would kill to have your problems! (:
In the moments you have “wasted,” you have created a little beauty and serenity and sent it out to millions of others.
Perhaps the work you have accomplished is merely a ripple of change in the lives of your readers that can result in a world of change, if just for today.
Wil the amazing – time spent appreciating a moment (even if it leads to 10 extra seconds of arrr) – is never wasted. Hang in there – you will get the things done that are essential, and you’re gonna make it.
Nice prose for wasting time.
Hey, that’s me! I’m a dejected Ahr!
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
– Bertrand Russell
Everybody needs to stop and breathe once in a while 🙂
I signed in to leave a comment for the first time since I started reading your blog (after your first appearance on The Big Bang Theory). I felt it might be time to try to give back to you in some way.
I remember watching TNG with my father constantly growing up, and I think it kindled a love for all things science and nerdly. I found friends that shared my love for DnD, Magic: The Gathering, and terrible Zombie movies (which are the best ones, of course). Things were good…
Once I graduated high school I became distanced from my friends, as these things tend to happen. I started working a series of dead-end soul-sucking retail jobs and something unintended happened. I skipped a movie, then skipped a dungeon crawl, then sold my cards… I thought I couldn’t talk to my new work friends about what I really loved, so instead (and I think subconsciously) I slowed, then finally stopped doing the things I really loved and “willingly” joined the pop culture mass.
I thought things were OK, then I started watching The Big Bang theory, and I realized I was missing something, I was missing out on the petty ridiculous fights over a little “friendly” card game, the brightly colored comics, the terrible zombie movies (seriously, am I right?!?) but that didn’t quite bring back the old feelings.
I had just had dinner over my parent’s house, and I was sitting with my father watching The Big Bang theory, and you showed up on screen. Suddenly I was a kid sitting on the floor in front of my father’s recliner thinking about science and, of course, the final frontier.
On a whim the next day I googled your name, and stumbled on this blog of Nerd/Geek/Heaven. Reading excerpts from your books, I heard the sound of dice skittering across a table thundering in my ears, and felt a joy (aptly described as “nerdsquee”) rise in my soul that I hadn’t felt in years!
I changed after that. I went into work and told my coworkers that I spent the weekend slaying trolls, watching zombie movies, and finally casting a 30 point fireball on my high school friend (and I still lost!). I lost a few “friends” upon hearing that, and still a few more graduated from acquaintances to Dungeon Fodder.
So that’s my short and fairly terribly written tale: A venture from a nerdy kid, to a boring adult, to a reinvigorated person. I would like to thank you for rekindling a fire in my soul that for too long has smoldered. I hope that this might inspire you in some way and give you a little motivation for the upcoming con.
So with that, I will take my Bag Of Holding, stuff it with my DnD manuals, take my episodes of The Eyes Of Nye on my phone, and be on my way.
I have PCs to torture.
Sincerely,
Bryan
It’s a good thing to relax and bask in nature – something most of us don’t take enough time to do.
Dude … thank you.
Let your geek fly fly!
It is times like that, that keep us going through the hard times. Good luck with everything, Wil. You will do great. Have a safe trip. =]
Awww DAMMIT! Let your Geek FLAG fly, I mean.
sigh.
Enjoying nature is never a waste of time otherwise why hang out the bird feeders? Have a great time. I can’t be there in person, so I will have to watch on the You Tubes and of course await the post blog. I am also hoping that Wootstock will sail into Boston Harbour and drop anchor next to The Mayflower and party with the Pilgrims. (Hopeful Arrr). Have a safe trip and beware of the Protestors.
You’re monitoring your comments? Stay on task bro! 😉
I’m going to back Wil up here. Let your geek flag fly, friend! I took a ten year hiatus from comic books and have only recently rediscovered them. My, my. What I was missing! Glad to have you back!
Oh, and Wil? Hang in there. Take heart in that you at least made me feel better about some things, and remember that it’s always better once you get on the plane. Breathe, Mister Secretary. Breathe.
More power to you, Bryan! Wil’s largely responsible (let’s say 87% for the sake of precision) for me getting into roleplaying too, so I understand all too well the lure of nerdsquee.
Geeky or otherwise, do what you love. And the friends who don’t understand? They will eventually, just win them over with geek lite stuff 😉
w00tstock 2.1 training to the rescue .. or, cue, anyhow:
arrrrrr 🙁 …..
I hope you feel up again soon.
And there was me getting excited and thinking it was going to be a post about pirates! Arrrrrrrrr!
Yeah, losing friends over something like that I would say is fairly indicative of sucktitude at friendship on their part, to be honest. No need to worry about really ruining relationships with people who are worth it over something like geekiness, because “those who mind don’t matter, and those that matter don’t mind”.
I guess I got lucky. I was just out of college in the early 90’s working in the real world… hell, it was another fantasy world of Rock ‘n Roll traveling around to gigs and seeing stadiums and arenas all over the western US. But it didn’t feed the geek in me. Don’t get me wrong, at 24 I loved the sex and drugs and rock & roll lifestyle, but the people around me were annoying. I could talk Star Wars with some but no one could understand Bakshi or compare TOS, TNG and DS9…
It was a chance meeting with a couple of guys from the dorms that brought me back in the fold. We had never gamed other than epic Archon battles on the C64 but it turned out that after leaving school they had started up a weekly D&D session. Next visit home to my parents house I dug up my AD&D box with the first edition core manuals, some random Dragons with some variant rules, Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods figures & my dice bag from high school. It was like coming home after a long trip away.
Came off the road after a few years and got a corporate job working with SAP, but that chance meeting plugged me back into a world that I nearly drifted away from and I kept my geekness intact into my 40’s. Just needed someone to help me back on the path.
It is never wasted time appreciating the peace and serenity of the world around you. It is only wasted time driving half and hour all the way home to retrieve your character sheets that you must have left on your kitchen table and forgotten to put in your game bag before leaving for your friends house, only to discover, upon arriving home, that they were in the back seat of the car the whole time.
Arrrr.
Thanks a lot Wil, hope it helped!
I can think of no better way to fly my geek flag than a Bag Of Holding full of DnD books and a “Great Outdoor Fight” t-shirt.
Though, if there were an actual geek flag, what would be on it? 20-sided dice? NES controller? 386? Thoughts?
Wasted in current time? Perhaps.
In your ‘vault’ for future use?
Yep.
And too many of us have empty vaults there….. Or things buried under years of rubble-negative.
The little bit of energy you got later you didn’t think you would have, probably came from taking those moments.
“but now I just feel like I’ve wasted time I should have spent working.”
Ahh, but you were working Wil. You most certainly were.
Your ability to convey the feelings we all have is why I, and I hazzard to guess many others, are your fans. If you were some sort of unrelatable automaton I think you’d be infinitely less….well, less.
Keep up the good “work”.
I have to say, taking a few minutes to reminisce about your childhood and stopping to smell the roses occasionally is NEVER a bad thing. It’s those little moments in life that make us smile, and shape who we are as humans.
Besides, you need to show the sweeter side of yourself after playing #EvilWilWheaton, right? 😉 DFTBA, Wil.