Complaining about the things they willfully chose to consume in entirety.

The most common complaint in most one star reviews of books, movies and other media goes a little something like this.

That’s time I will never get back.

Have you ever noticed that? Or have you ever made that comment yourself?

Customers are annoyed that they just spent their hard earned money on a crappy product. But importantly, they’re really enraged about the fact that they invested their precious time consuming it. They feel regretful, foolish and mad.

Now, this response is perfectly human understandable. Those words have come out of my mouth plenty of times.

However, as a person who consumes and creates a vast amount of media, allow me to share my perspective on the matter.

First of all, there is no unit of time we will ever get back. That’s not how the currency of time works. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s amazingly ephemeral and all we have is the next moment and the moment after that. Any lingering traces will be gone with the wind.

Secondly, even if we could get time back, complaining about it isn’t worth the effort. Because if we want to live prosperous, abundant and prolific lives, then we have to take ourselves out of the victim position in regard to all forms of energy.

Whether that’s time, money, love, creativity, we must practice complete abstinence from complaining about any of those things. Instead we learn to remind ourselves that we have plenty of everything we need to do everything want in life.

Finally, when people complain that they will never get their time back, part of me wonders whose fault that really is. Look, nobody held a pistol to your head and made you read the whole book, listen to the whole album, eat the whole pizza or sit through the entire musical.

You’re an adult who can make your own decisions and stop any time you want. Just stop. Or walk out of the theater. Get on with your life.

I’m deeply perplexed when I hear people complain about the things they willfully chose to consume in entirety. They act as if these pieces of media forced themselves into their brains, and that they were helplessly trapped with them.

When the fact is, content they allowed into their orbit is exactly what they choose to consume.

My theory is, some folks hate read or hate watch things, to completion, solely so they can justify their bitching once the suffering is over.

It’s this twisted version of self mutilation. It’s like they like not liking things, because they’re addicted to the act of spitting vitriol after the fact. Writing that scathing, resentful one star review about how they are miserable makes makes them happy.

It’s the pellet that makes the rat like itself.

Anyway, hopefully reading this wasn’t so much a waste of your time that you wish you could get it back.

What is your relationship to the currency of time?