Life Doesn't Have to be Short | Stop Wasting Time

Personally during my short time on this Earth I've been torn between two states of living. The first being a sloths life, allowing myself to glide through it with the least amount of damage possible to myself and others. The kind of life where you live purely for enjoyment. In a way I believe life is to be taken slowly, at your own pacing doing whatever you desire at that point. This is where my belief in hedonism comes from. The second state is that of constant education and experiences. Life is a state that allows you to experience this world and you should try to fill it as much with possible with absolutely anything and everything.

However recently I've had a new view on things after reading Seneca on the Shortness of Life. Seneca was a Roman philosopher. You probably know him as the author of the play Oedipus. I've discovered that at when someone is on their deathbed, at any age, plenty of people aren't fulfilled. They do not greet death, but rather shy away from it terrified. While this is viewed as a completely natural reaction, of course it is, you'd think that if you were more satisfied with your life you may not open the idea of death with open arms but rather more readily. It's not that life has necessarily been short. If you live to 90 your existence would have been a long one, but if you didn't do anything with your time it would seem like a short life. If you truly live but find yourself dying at thirty you won't be as terrified of an older person who wasted it.

So how does one live to such an extent that they're satisfied? How do you reach this end goal of being eternally content? Well, you don't.

Your time is precious

Living in this way doesn't prompt a goal. Of course you can work towards things such as getting a promotion or decorating your living room but none of these are a long-term plan. When you live from day to day you wouldn't be thinking about a promotion. Now think about the time you spend watching films. No, don't worry I'm not going to damn you for doing this. Just think of what you watch. Are you really interested in the subject manner? Is it something that's going to improve your life, really entertain you or educate you? Think about the times you've watched something you just knew you wouldn't be into. Imagine sitting at home bored and deciding to throw on Avatar: The Last Airbender (the film!) just to pass the time. We spend so many precious minutes committing ourselves to useless hobbies and past times to... well pass the time. Nothing is going in, nothing is coming out. It's just a load of dead space. 

I have a problem with the idea of leisure time. Humans are brilliant at treating leisure time as their break from life. We obviously never have a break from our existence and therefore every second should, and will, be counted. Just because you have a Sunday off doesn't give you the excuse to veg-out in front of the television for hours on end. Nor does it allow you to put your 'efforts' to useless and wholly futile activities. Within the book I mentioned before Seneca took pity on the people who prioritized excessive drinking and whoring as their main source of happiness. Drinking, while I agree can be crazy fun, is something which essentially just shortens your life. I don't mean it slowly kills you and your liver. Rather that in the blink of an eye your night will be done and you'll wake up, feeling groggy and spending the rest of the day just trying to recover. Similarly putting your efforts towards sleeping with someone, when the hour or so of pleasure you take from it is severely outweighed by the time you

Leave the dead weight behind

It works similarly with people. Why do we devote so much of our time to people we don't like or who contribute nothing to our lives? Interacting with certain people is possibly the number one thing that takes up our time is a useless way. That's not to say everyone is baggage. Surround yourself with people who prompt interesting arguments, teach you skills and push you to be better. We all have those friends who we hang out with and literally do nothing around. We vegetate with them and their company gives us the perfect excuse to do nothing productive. Apart from dosing ourselves up with a little dopamine these interactions sap us of some of the most precious times of our lives.

So why do we get annoyed when maybe people are trying to do the same to us; cut us out of their lives if we contribute nothing to them. We take it unfairly to heart as if it's some greatly personal thing, but the reality is if you're not helping make another persons life better in a productive way or challenging them then what is the point of having you around. Brutal I know.

"True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

Seneca makes a big deal about making an effort to live in the present, future and past, altogether without prioritising one or the other. The present is fleeting so it's impossible to concentrate entirely on it. Living for the moment is not necessarily the best way to go about things. Just when you start to get a grasp on what you need to do and experience in any given day it will soon be over. 

Alternatively you must also partially concentrate on the future if you ever expect to get anywhere. However don't allow this to become toxic. Constantly waiting for things to happen will slowly undermine your entire life. While you're waiting for that gig to happen on Saturday you spend the entirety of your week looking forward to it and lose a lot of time being excited for something that'll only last a few hours. If you spend time organising your future excessively this too will sap you of precious hours. Organise the bare minimum if necessary but ensure you're living enough in the present to not be consumed by the future, as exciting as planning can be.

Finally concentrating on -not living in- the past is essential. Not only can you learn from your history as a wealth of knowledge your memories are forever unchanging. Seeing how far you've come, being grateful and noticing that your time was well spent gives endless benefits to the human mind. Living in the past will torment you and waste time. Recognizing that the past has happened and being proud of it is a healthy and wholly unique experience.

So now are you going to go out and do something productive or what?