Killing time

What is the difference between killing time and doing something worthwhile?

Seems like that should be a simple enough thing to answer, but it really depends on who you are and what you believe.

I know people who base everything on money.  If I am not being paid money to do what I do then it isn't really work and only work is really worthwhile, but of course no one really believes that no matter what they say.

No one pays us to love our own children or do things with them.  Yet it is important work.  It is also very satisfying and often fun work! Volunteer work outside the family is another one of these.  Volunteers often do the same things their paid coworkers do, only they do it for other reasons than money, which hopefully their paid cohorts do too.

Those other reasons help define the difference between killing time and what is worthwhile.

I remember the phrase, "idle hands are the devil's playthings."  I hear it comes from St. Jerome, but I couldn't find any reference for it.  Still it was an oft quoted phrase that kept men whittling and women knitting and crocheting and tatting whenever they were "resting."  It also predates television where people stare vacuously at a flickering screen until they drop off from boredom.

Here are a few of my favorite "idle" quotes:

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
Buddha

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
Samuel Johnson

Food for thought, but for me the biggest difference between doing something worthwhile and being idle is what comes out of it.  Killing time is doing something that drains me.

Idleness can be the birthplace of great ideas, innovative creations and simply renewing my zest for life.  I think those things are worthwhile.