There seem to be very convenient cliches out there:
- We “don’t have time” (we don’t make time)
- “Time is the most valuable resource” (time is nothing without your energy or attention)
- “Life is short” (even though we love to procrastinate)
We love to use these catch-all phrases as justification. We create these TV commercials in our minds and end up calling the toll-free number.
Consider this…
It takes decades for a human to incubate and provide a return on investment to society. That’s a long time!
Potty training, puberty, 12 years of classes and acne, and going to college to learn how to work for 40 years. Or putting off work for 2 or 4 or 8 years by getting schooled even more.
This incubation time of 20–30 years is longer than you think. We don’t remember 99.9% of it despite all our personal experiences, drama, and choices. We can only look back at the few highlights and twinkles embedded in the celestial void of time.
Can you imagine being in prison for that long? Some of us are happy to put someone away for the amount of time it takes for a human to mature. Someone sentenced to 30 years in 1990 would have missed out on smartphones, the Internet revolution, and fidget spinners. Who’s the real monster here?
How long is 30 years? 1990 seems so far away from 2021. 2050 is the same amount of time away. I was born before 1990, so how old does that make me?
30 years to finish school and start a career. Another 30 years of working. Then another 30 years of retirement and filling in the space before you expire.
Having a 90-year lifespan sounds exhausting, and it keeps getting longer. Why are so few of us willing to admit that life is actually quite long?
Why does life feel short?
According to Seneca, a Stoic philosopher, “it’s not that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and it’s given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well.”
So even though we have a lot of time at our disposal, we choose to waste a lot of it, too.
We then regret it and blame our lack of time on life itself. “It’s all your fault, life! You’re too short!” Our egos and bad memory won’t let us point to our own choices.
“Life is short” is propaganda by people who wasted their time.
Life is actually really long, but the kicker is that it could end at any moment.
You could stumble off a cliff with no tree to catch you. The earth might sneeze and demolish your silly little house. Another driver who had one eye on the phone could meet you at the same place and time.
So what’s the takeaway here?
One, never leave the house.
Two, we can’t assume our lives are guaranteed to be short or long. Prepare for the future, but don’t live only for the future or only in the present.
Three, I don’t know. I’m not going to lecture you on how to live your life.
So how does someone prepare for the future but also live in the present?
We learned that we could die at any moment. We don’t know when.
Also, regret is more powerful and long lasting than failure (forget about Viagra).
Many of us do practical and conventional things like we were “supposed to” do. It’s safer. Safe is good but perhaps not excellent. It also helps us avoid scrutiny from the rest of the world who are also not doing what they truly want to do. But don’t you admire people who trusted themselves to go after what they wanted, conventional path be damned?
Where’s the balance?
How about… Enjoy the process. Happiness leads to freedom. Accept that your life could be cut short at any moment, but don’t use that as an excuse to YOLO all the time. Accept that life is incredibly long, but don’t procrastinate.
No need to rush toward some end goal where I will finally enjoy life if I can have enjoyable experiences along the way. Ryan Holiday says, “Be aware but not troubled.” Rent an Airbnb; take a sabbatical from work; start those side projects. We live in the most reversible time in history. Most mistakes are not devastating.
I will try to prioritize what’s important to me and then take action so that I don’t waste time. I will try not to burden myself with houses and fancy possessions and things we “need.”
Wow! This is harder than I thought. But I think it’s a skill and mindset we can learn if we want to.
Not wasting time is a choice. Wasting time is OK too. The combustion engine is only 30% efficient.
Let’s optimize rather than maximize. I have plenty of time to learn and adjust course along the way. Assuming I don’t die in the meantime, of course.