What’s your schedule today? How does it include your life goals? Do you have things that you’ve always wanted to do? But does the schedule have work that you don’t want but have to do?
I don’t know about you but it felt strange to me when I set up life goals and pictured myself starting them years down the line. I, like a lot of other people, expect my future self to be somehow a better version of me now. We hope that [future me] will take initiative and stick with that goal. But what I’ve realized is that it is just delaying what I truly should do for no apparent reason.
And what took me so long to internalize is that my time left never goes up, only down. It’s the only real resource that we should be obsessed with. Sometimes it’s only the ticking of the clock that makes each moment really worth living.
Many people seem to treat money as equivalent or near equivalent to time. But if we consider that true wealth is having all your time to yourself, money is only important until you are free of financial obligations. But some people go far beyond this.
Money replaces time in value and they are constantly concerned about financial security, and they continue to buy expensive, unnecessary luxuries that’s forcing them to work harder and more on things they don’t want to do. [Cite back to my article on being unable to raise baseline happiness with wealth]
But it’s pointless to regret all the time we’ve wasted or trying to cut minutes off our schedule by rushing and rushing. We should instead embrace the big, obvious time wasters in our life. One of which includes the arbitrary “I’ll start x then” timeline we make for ourselves. Another is time spent “stalling” or “burning” time running away from pain (e.g. surfing reddit during work). This is so much time that can be spent your way.
So why do so many people enjoy throwing away their time? Many people like the idea of freedom but are quite unhappy when they are free to do whatever they want. I’ve come to believe this is because they have not yet figured out what they want to do with their lives [hence midlife crises]. But it’s another huge time sink if you just wait until you figure out what to do with your life. Remember, every day that goes by regardless. So you can choose to take things into your hands and explore what you want to do with your life. Exploring all the choices that life offers is perhaps one of the most liberating experiences you can give yourself.
Whatever point your life is in, you are able to find freedom. Many others won’t do this because they do not see the value of freedom. It’s scary to them. Paradox of choice says that we regret more the more choices we had. I don’t think “having too many choices” is what should scare you away from living life on your own terms.
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