There are lot's of things we do that feels like a waste of time, but actually helps to form fragments of the knowledge we accumulate that pushes us to better better at the things we do. Let's look at it differently. A person might be posting on Hive, and earning 0.2$ for every post they make.
Originally our "effort-to-reward" instincts would initially kick in, making us realize that this is an extremely waste of time. Realistically, it is a waste of time, but the difference is that the concept of black and white is not applicable to things like planting seeds.
For example, a farmer living in a tsunami-prone area would originally feeling that planting in an area like that would open them to multiple losses, as they cannot predict when it'll happen.
It's also the same as submitting applications for job offers even when you know there's an 80% chance that you'll get a rejection letter.
How about someone who trying to earn money by trying different opportunities, failing at almost everything no matter how hard they try?
It's also applicable to fighting to recover from an ailment. While it's easy to think that money is the only thing that makes people "not give", it's also important to realize that in the face of self-preservation, people would go to any length to make sure they continue to thrive..
Self-preservation and trial
In the process of self-preservation we can do a lot of things that looks honestly time-wasting. If everyone calculates the time and effort they've put into things they never really benefit them, you'll realize that a lot of us have lost "time" in many ways.
Which is incredible because the early man who is our ancestors had a lot of time on their hands, and trying a lot of things was how they actually came about or discovered things like medicine, just by trying out different things.
In reality, the life of advancement we currently have was born out of different trials, time wasted on things that never worked, lives lost, dreams destroyed and destinies ruined.
The very foundation of the technological advancements we have is built on trial and error, there are people who started the innovative of the technology we enjoy today, but they wasted a lot of time, and never got it right, and other people had to continue
You might die without getting it
At the moment, someone out there is trying a lot of things to make things like cancer curable and affordable to the higher population, this is also the same with other people who have wasted millions in revenue, trying to find a cure for some of the deadliest genetic condition in the world.
The reality of life is that some of these people will waste money, effort and time and still die without achieving these goals, but no one will talk about the fact that they laid the foundation for the research for others to easily follow and continue their work.
The fact that we will waste time and fail doesn't mean we cannot try anyway. While the possibilities of failures are real, we cannot also neglect the possibility of achieving success.
Somehow we want to always have the assurance of success before we actually start a venture, and when there's no guarantees, a lot of people just gives up, and they forget that even the very fabrics of our being alive is laden with a lot of uncertainties.
Conclusion
In reality, when we waste time and effort, we gain experience, even though (experience) it's not readily convertible to gains and material gratification. No one wants to believe that they didn't actively waste time.
Because when we cannot primarily convert effort to results, we immediately think we've failed, not factoring the fact that failure gives experience, which in turn helps you to try again, but in a better way.
The process of evolution is achieved with time, and even though we want to always hit it when we try for the first time, we cannot cannot help it.
We will waste TIME doing completely stupid things just to gain experience to do the right thing. We cannot get lucky or better if you cannot initially try.
The only way to get better is to try. You cannot get better if you're not in motion, you need to move to change position, and someday it might just make sense.