If You Have the Time to Write, Use That Time to Write

 

Photo Credit: Photo by Laker at Pexels

 

Recently, I was sitting on the couch reading on my phone, when I was notified of a new message in Facebook Messenger. Because it was after 1AM, I almost didn’t respond – until I saw the words, “I thought that we were friends.” I frowned. What the heck was going on? So I opened the message and read it, Apparently, one of my friends (now a former friend) had seen a comment I made on Facebook and took it personally. This person thought I was talking about her when I was not. Unfortunately, she ended our friendship over this and as much as her words hurt me and as much as losing this friendship made me sad, I was also reminded of how people often spend their free time scrolling on their phone and allowing what they read to influence them in some way. That is what happened with this person. Instead of asking me who I was talking about, she automatically assumed it was her and went after me. I was talking about someone else and she thought I was lying when I told her this. She was pretty much convinced by the unverified assumption that I was talking about her. People like to believe the lies they tell themselves.

 

This experience also made me think about how I have often done the same thing. I’d get upset over reading comments on social media and allow that to pretty much just ruin my day. Then I’d have to stop to remind myself that I am allowing someone else to have control over how I feel. I’m allowing someone else to just ruin my whole day and make me feel bad. In such situations, I had to realize that I was using up free time I had doing something that was a waste of my time and how I could have been spending that time doing something better. Something more productive, like writing.

 

We all have the same 24 hours in our day, and for most of us, we get to decide how to use that 24 hours. Of course, some of it must be used for sleeping, eating, and managing our health, but on many occasions, we will have free time to do whatever we want to do.

 

So, why not use that time to write?

 

Instead of doomscrolling on our phone.

 

Instead of binging on chips while watching TV.

 

Instead of gossiping about or hating on other people.

 

Use that time to write instead.

 

One common complaint that I see from people who say “I wish I could write” is that they never have the time to write. But they do, they just don’t see it.

 

For these people, time to write means hours of uninterrupted time or being able to comfortably write at the desk. But the real writers who find the time to write, and make the time to write, are the ones who are writing on their lunch break, writing right before they go to bed (or first thing in the morning) or writing while doing other things.

 

The next time you have some free time, use it to write. Even if it is the only time you have to write, it’s still one way for you to get the writing done. So get that writing done the next time you have the time, instead of getting all upset over something you read on Facebook.