There is a word we use when something has been wasted. It stings to hear, is used almost solely after that thing has passed us by. The middle-aged man whose father has just died realizes he’s squandered the chance to get to know him. The lottery winner whose bank account hits zero laments squandering her winnings. The old man on his deathbed realizes he’s squandered his life— never fully appreciated its gift. We use squander in retrospect because no one plans on squandering. When opportunity is before us, we tend to have great delusions of putting every ounce of that potential to use. I will save my lottery winnings, put some aside, devote some charity. I will get to know my father next time I’m home for a weekend. I will make my life one worth living. When I get to the end, it will have been worth it.
But we inevitably squander. We are fated to abuse what is in our grasp, and why? Because that’s what we do. Because what is it to not squander? How great does one have to be to properly seize the advantages and opportunities they have? In the end, when lamentation settles into our psyches, there are very few roads which lead to contentment. No matter what it is, once it is gone, we realize it could have been better used. But of course, that isn’t true.
Of course when the potential or the resource or the opportunity is gone, it seems ridiculous that we ever had it in the first place. And to deepen the very human folly of existence, it is only in the practice squandering that one acquires the knowledge necessary to avoid squanderment. If only we could win the lottery again; if only we could have just one more life to give. We are certain that armed with the knowledge we gained in the first pass, things would be different. Yet they never are. Humans change. We are a redemptive lot, and despite the reigning idea that there are no second chances, there are, in fact, infinite ones. Each moment is an opportunity for an inner re-framing, where we find ourselves to be richer than we have ever been, may have those lost conversations with ourselves, may make whatever brief life we have left the exact sort of one we imagined living before. To regret squandering is to forget that everything we have is before us, everything we’ve had is a lesson on how to live it.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, the protagonist on the verge of a moral revelation holds a conversation with himself. He asks whether he has any interests left, and responds that he has none, that he “has no virtue left to give.” He theorizes that the the process of aging through adolescence is the act of giving off ‘calories of virtue,’ and that as the innocent loses, or spends, his innocence, it gives off a warmth that others crave. “That’s why a good man gone wrong attracts people. They stand around and literally warm themselves at the calories of virtues he gives off.” This view of aging as squandering is a way to understand the “loss of innocence.” According to the protagonist,
“I thought I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don’t. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”
In squandering, we shed these assets— capital, hope, virtue, opportunity, naïveté— because that is what we choose to do. The loss of innocence is such an integral aspect of a life because of how very human it is to spend innocence. And when we decry this loss, we more accurately are decrying the chance to lose it again.
But what about missed opportunities? Do we really crave the chance to miss them again? Perhaps not, but we do crave the chance to hide once more in our cave, knowing full well that the opportunity is out there, because within that cave we had hope beside us. Within that cave, things may still be perfect. Upon squandering, we can remain in the cave, we can exit, can seek in vain the opportunity again. What we lament is not the opportunity itself, but the hope which burned within us before the opportunity passed.
There are things which to squander may be offensive. What is it to squander, say, freedom? To live in a society full of opportunity, where one may think and act liberally, where we may express our truest selves to a degree that is historically rare, and not do so? Are we spoiled, in this case, for taking for granted a resource which so few have? Or is it better to squander these things? When does squandering become sacrificing? I will not breathe freely until every human is capable of doing so. Is this noble, or is it nobler, as an homage to those without these gifts, to live them to their fullest capacity?
That is the tragic side of squandering, but the practice may also veer into the comic. Dave Eggars’ You Shall Know Our Velocity tells the story of two friends who come into a large sum of money by means they feel they do not deserve. After having their faith in humanity depleted by a senseless attack and the brutal death of their good friend, they decide to travel the world giving the money away in an attempt to restore others’ and their own belief in humanity. They devise a treasure map for Estonian children, and tape a large bundle of cash to a donkey with a note that reads “Here I Am, To Rock You Like a Hurricane.” They turn squandering into an art form, like the greatest hedonists among us. Like Neal Cassady, soaring across the American landscape siring children he has no intention of raising, seducing women he has no intention of caring for, and poisoning his mind and body since he has no plans of living long, and figuring he might as well live it well. We crave stories like these, where things are squandered in soulful bounding heaps rather than timid trails of bread crumbs, spread so thin they amount to a pitiful nothing. It is possible, in this framework, that we may under-squander. That we may reach the end of the line with some virtue left to soil, with some innocence left to lose, with some opportunities not yet blown or some cash not yet burnt. In the you-can’t-take-it-with-you mindset, to squander is to take our gifts by the horn and refuse to leave any purity unscathed.
To fear squandering is to be inherently capitalistic. It is the zero-sum sense that we are allotted only so much in this world, and the ledger must end on zero. If we go too quickly through these life-points, if we fail to invest wisely, we have wasted them. One can imagine a medieval, puritanical ideology of retaining as much virtue as possible, on squandering as little as we can so as to enter the realm of heaven with our saddle-bags well stocked, with proof that we carried the light of the lord delicately, and took no pleasure in the ample opportunities for blissful abandon. And there may be virtue in that. Perhaps a life well-lived is one where you retain as childlike a composure as possible, as late into life as you can. We scoff at these types of folk, deride them as naïve when all they are doing is choosing against all reason to believe in what has proven repeatedly to fail. Miracles, or the purity of others. As kind as you believe yourself to be, when watching someone foolishly enter scenarios where they will certainly get screwed, you cannot help but judge them for not proceeding with their guard up. You beg of them to squander their idealism as you did, and accept the world for what it is. These people, in our current system, will always lose. But they will insist that the way-of-things is more righteous than you see it, and some light within them will shine brighter for it. If we all believed it, the world would be better. But as long as one person relents, the blindly optimistic will be drained for all they’re worth.
We all squander. We all waste for the thrill that is wasting, and because it is hard to keep your eyes open without doing so. If you choose not to scourge these resources, the world will scourge them for you. But one should love squandering. And when regret finds you later— tells you that you have lost a thing which you might have used better, tells you that you cannot have that thing back, and that you are worse for it— love that regret. It is the only connection you still have to that thing. It will last far longer than the memory of losing it.