I was thinking about that too. I believe anyone who uses that phrase is probably using it to get out of something, and they’re likely to spend that time watching TV.
But hey, it’s important for people to think their lives are substantial, so they go by a scale that they can measure up on. Technically there’s nothing wrong with it, but if you presume your scale can be used against other people, it’s just as crude as any number of analagous situations.
Back in about 1992 or so, I went and saw Kurt Vonnegut give a talk at the University of Georgia. The speech was brilliant, and I still take inspiration from many sections of it, but the one that resonates here was about what he does when he finishes a novel. I’d put this in quotes, but I’m not quoting; I’m making up the words for the general plot outline:
I finish a novel that I’ve written out longhand, and I have to send it to my typist, a lady named Something Orother. So I get ready to walk into town to the post office. My wife always says, “Why don’t you just call the FedEx people and they’ll come pick it up?” And I say, “Shut up.” And I walk into town. I stop at the drugstore and maybe have a Coke, and I ask the fellow behind the counter, Robert, about his wife. Then I go to the Post Office, but I don’t get in line until I’ve counted the other people and timed it carefully so I can get to the window manned by this one particular woman because I think I am in love with her. She takes my package and sends it off, and then I leave the post office and go to the park at the center of town and sit down for a while and watch the kids playing frisbee and the old folks feeding pigeons and talking about baseball. And then I get up and walk home, and I’ve had a life.
That’s what I always think of when I hear the phrase “get a life” or some such. It’s about having interaction with people and the varying levels of relationships you have with those people, from the very familiar (the wife) to the passing (the kids playing frisbee).
Personally, I’m a bit of a hermit. I work until late at night, and rarely see people much. But when I get off work I like to go to a bar where everyone knows each other and hang out and just listen to people talk, since I’ve been sitting in a room all by myself for nine hours at that point. I don’t really want to talk to people, but I like to eavesdrop as people talk about “what happened to so-and-so” and “such-and-such is moving to Tonga” and so on.
Scantilly, thank you so much, you did pick up on my unbridled enthusiasm about my awesome Epson Perfection 3200! 
And StarvingButStrong has a point too: a goal, an objective. In my case, my awesome Epson Perfection 3200 is helping me with a long-term goal—to do more with my photography. I am an “arty” person, and my photography is part of that.
I don’t think goals have to be the “I’m going to be a millionaire” type of goals, just…I dunno. Goals. “I want to get better at this”. “I want to learn this.” “I want to travel there someday.” You know, stuff like that.
And sometimes, the “goal” is just to have fun. I have a friend who is more focused and money-oriented in his goals, so he used to discourage me from “wasting” my time making a rather comprehensive web site showing off my Yosemite photography. “Why aren’t you promoting your art? Why aren’t you pounding the pavement and promoting yourself? Why make web pages promoting rocks and trees?” He stopped giving me a hard time about the Yosemite site after a big ad agency found the site and bought rights to one of my photos. They paid me a tidy sum. (Let’s put it this way: it helped pay for most of a new iMac. )
I find that sometimes my “For fun” projects end up paying off in ways I can’t imagine later on. But if I was too afraid of “wasting time”, I’d never have done them to begin with, and would have missed an opportunity. Part of having a “Life” is being enthusiastic enough to not always worry about “wasting time” and doing something that you love with no expectations, other than enjoyment.
jackelope: I love your Vonnegut story. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I think that what constitutes “having a life” differs from person to person.
I, myself, often feel that I should be having more of this mythical, sometimes darn hard to pin down thing called “a life”.
But … while I don’t have a soulmate, someone to share my life’s journey with, I do have friends, I have people around me who seem to get inspiration from what I do. I have a home of my own, where no one can tell me what to do. I do have jobs (plural) which help pay the bills. I go out, and I dig up stuff from another time out of papers and joyrnals and diaries and old faded maps, and turn them into stories from yesterday which bring joy to others.
And when I want to relax, one of the things I can do is post to messageboards like this one.
There’s one thing I’ll say for my pedestrian lifestyle – it isn’t boring too often.
Maybe that’s my problem. I can’t find a meaningful scale on which my life registers as more than a blip, at the moment.
Great story. It even sounded like Vonnegut, in spite of not being a direct quote.
Dude. I’m sorry but, even I have to say it; Get a life!
You can ignore me, but I’m still here. 
I don’t even really have many of those goals. There are some things I’d like to do, see, or learn, and I always want to have fun. But, nothing I really care about.
Actually, that isn’t true. I’m not in the mood to have fun, right now. I take that as a bad sign, and I’m going to leave you guys to continue the discussion without me. Anything I’d add, right now, would either be a bummer or TMI, or both. Have fun. Maybe I’ll check back.
Thanks for your input.