On the mundane act of doing things for others

Written on 18/06/2025.

The thought for these lines came as I was cutting an apple. We’re all creatures of habit, and my wife is no exception. Every night, she loves indulging in her “holy trinity”: an apple, a rooibos tea and a square of 70%+ dark chocolate, in that precise order. The apple is specifically cut in half and subsequently cut 3 times on each half for a grand total of 8 slices. She then sits down on the floor, leaning against the sofa, slowly dipping her chocolate into the tea. Once it reaches that slight melting point, she eats the melted chocolate, and the cycle continues until fully gone.

As I was placing the slices onto a plate, neatly arranged next to the chocolate, with the skin facing upwards, I could not help but wonder about this particularity of doing mundane things for others without expecting anything in return. This particular ritual brings me nothing, though you may argue it also becomes my habit. But intrinsically, it does not bring me any value. It is one of those things that simply is. So why do I do it? Is it out of love? Is it out of a need to feel better about myself? Does it need to be about any of those things?

I check in with myself, gauge my generosity, my greed, my frugality… Ultimately, I find I am most generous with my time, weirdly much more than with my money, even though time is probably the most valuable resource there is. It is finite for all of us and it will only ever include so many acts. There is plenty of “literature” out there about protecting your time, saying “NO” to things, alive time and dead time. A lot of it has its merits in the realm of work-life balance (which inevitably remains the kingdom that everything revolves around these days) but does it have a place when it comes to the mundane? Is time used in this way, in a sort of idle, semi-automatic state of mind, wasted? What does it really mean to waste time?