Life's Biggest Time Wasters

This morning I was thinking about how much time I can wast on Soduko or solitaire. I've become particularly fond of the Mah Jong solitaire game on the new Windows Vista. It's certainly a vice. I can play for half an hour without even realizing that I've been at the computer that long. Fortunately, I just have the Soduko daily calendar, so I only do one puzzle a day. It's not quite so bad.

A couple of days ago, a former co-worker was seen at the coffe shop down the street. He was not particularly well-liked, so someone asked if another co-worker wanted to run over there and see him -- acting not a little snarky about it. I had not had more than five minutes' thought about the individual since he had left the organization and found it interesting that he would be the subject of conversation, much less that anyone would take the time to worry about where he is now and what's going on, unless it was because he was a friend. I realized that this is another way that we can end up wasting a lot of time and energy. We tend to keep coming back to things that may have offended us or bothered us in the past, even though they are really water under the bridge at this point.

It made me wonder how much time I've wasted on worrying about things I can't change or behavior I've witnessed that I didn't like. Have I held on to things that are totally unproductive (and unfortunately, the answer to that is too often yes)? Have I spent time thinking about how others act when I have no controll over them, but only how I act toward them?

I want to be more mindful of how I spend my time and energy. I always feel like I have too many things going on and I really do have too many good things in my life to spend any time on either things I can't control or things that ultimately bring unhappiness. Worrying is not easy to stop, but I'm sure I can make an effort.