It’s not what you do . . .

It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. I tend to take this to mean that I must do good things well – a double pressure: correct choice, correct action. But really, it doesn’t matter what you do.

What someone else does may to another person, appear to be a waste of time. And indeed it could be – from both their points of view. Yet, in the final analysis, anything and everything can be thought of as having no significance. Nothing is inherently ‘worthwhile’. The test to determine whether what you do is of use is the amount of quality that you are able to extract from the exercise (or infuse it with). If you can manage that, then, no matter what others may say, you’re engaging in something useful.

Time spent with focused attention is always meaningful, not mater how ‘flippant’ the activity. Time passed in a fluster is meaningless, now matter how ‘important’ the work.

But is this really always so? What about serial killers? Well, I guess even here. If they do it ‘well’ with forethought and meticulousness then that is ‘better’ – less bad? – than going at it willy-nilly. For one thing they wouldn’t need to do it as often.

On the home front, a couple of hours of sorting used postage stamps or arranging photographs in an album is time well-spent if, for the individual concerned, the time flies by pleasantly.