Is chess a waste of time?

[Manjushri]

I started loving chess a week and a half ago. Now playing with friends at college is great, but I play at least 2 games at night too. That online chess is questionable. I don't know how I feel about it.

[DrewNows]

I don’t think doing what you love is going to be a waste of time. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to inquire what you love about it, and how it might become a problem but it definitely sounds like a good healthy hobby for your mind. 

Basically any activity can be turned into what you might consider a waste of time  depending on how you look at it

[Angelo John Gage]

What else are you supposed to do with your time other than use it how you want? There are many times I feel that what I doing which is not my "work" doing political anti-war activism, is  a waste of time. But then, what is the point of fighting against corruption and trying to stop war? What would we do if we had all day to ourselves in peace? We would play!

Either way, time is going to fly by.

[Arcangelo]

No.

[DrewNows]

@Manjushri if you have a belief that you are never doing enough (fear of failure, not being good enough, etc) this could be why you feel this way.

Address this belief. Ask yourself if it’s really true, then create another belief to change your mindset 

[TheWaterRuss]

No not at all

[Shadowraix]

Question your standards. What makes something a waste of time? If you love chess then likely the feeling could be coming from procrastination. Which has its own issues to tackle. 

Something can only be a waste of time if you deem it so. So the question stands, what do you want to do in life and how would chess go against that? 

[Commodent]

Online chess can be very addicting, it's so easy to start a new blitz game and it's very easy to get preoccupied with your rating. As a general guideline I would restrict addictive behavior (which includes all non-productive online activity) only to times where you're together with other people.

[Andreas]

Chess promotes racism. So chess is evil. 

[Truth Addict]

Since when having fun was bad?

Treat your hobbies as sins and they will turn into addictions.

The point is, if you have nothing to do, then why are you even asking?

[Austin Actualizing]

I'd consider that a very healthy hobby, thats good for the brain. As long as it doesn't become a distraction for other more important things or an addiction. 

[Manjushri]

@Winter no LP yet. but the last week I've been playing a game or two or three or four of chess at night when I come home. It might become questionable. I made an account which means rating which means uhhhhhhhhhhh...... I might invest myself into learning a lot about chess, but it's just a game. The same resources I can put in a language...

[Manjushri]

I see myself getting dopamine hits when I up my rating... Playing without an account was no problem. I use it to escape from the present sometimes as well. I see all the mechanisms...

[hyruga]

There's always pros and cons when doing anything even sleeping.

In chess, there's the advantage of training of your patience and cognitive thinking, strategising and so on. And the con is of course you may have to spend a lot of time playing and your mind is only focused on chess and not other things which might be more important.

I once beat a high sch chess champion 3 times out of 3. No idea how I won. I just flow and beat him. Instantly, I feel amazing and I challenged my cousin to chess next week and I lost. 

I have come to terms that I am not very interested in chess to pursue it. I prefer to do other things in life.