waste

While driving to work today, a thought popped into my head - How do you know if you have wasted something if you don't know how much you have there is with you? If you have abundance of a certain thing and you give/spend away a little, you won't think it's wastage; like money. Yet, you only think you've wasted something when you want more, yet you got no more to take from. I tried to think how this applies to other aspects in terms of effort, time, love, even life.

Let's start with an easy one - How do you know or how can you tell if you've wasted time and effort in doing something? If you have all the time in the world, you won't think that you're wasting time sitting around doing nothing. Yet, it is only when you're pressed for time do you feel that you may have spent some unwisely- i.e. wasted. But then again, if you have all the time in the world and you spend all of them doing what you think was right and proper, you might still look back and see that you might or could have spent some differently. Is it only through hindsight that we'll recognise wastage?

If that is the case, what about love and life - does it mean that you won't know if you've wasted love and life until the day you've got no more to give? What happens then when you've got no more to give? Is that what happens when your life flashed before your eyes at that last moment - for you to determine if you've wasted what's given to you? Will regret be the last feeling I have before I die?

I must stop thinking such thoughts while driving ... I really don't know what to think.