“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it” – Seneca
How much time have you wasted recently? How much time has slipped away with nothing to show for it.
How many hours have you spent scrolling on TikTok or other social media platforms?
How many hours have you spent watching your favourite TV shows? TV shows you have already watched, which you may have even seen over and over again?
Or how about playing video games (I’m guilty of this one and I won’t admit to how many hours I’ve sunk into them)
And still we all have nothing to show for it?
We often justify this behaviour as downtime, you know – you’ve been busy all day and you just want a bit of ‘me time’. And yet we wonder, why hasn’t anything good happened to us, why hasn’t anything changed.
Well, that downtime is a luxury and the cost of that luxury is your most valuable asset – time.
“…when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing” – Seneca
The most difficult time in my life was also the best time of my life. It was when I was so busy and over committed but I was working towards something meaningful.
Over a 10 year period I worked full-time for 7 years while studying part-time for 4 years and working part-time for 3 years while also studing full-time for 3.5 years. With an overlap of working part-time and full-time at the same time.
And yes, the math isn’t easy to piece together but for a 6 month period I was actually working full-time, studying full-time and working part-time.
And during that time I achieved a masters, a PhD and a MBA.
I also managed to be a good father and husband. And it was the greatest period of my life.
But I had to be ruthless with my time, because as Seneca says…
“Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested” – Seneca
We just need to invest our time well.
So
“Life is long if you know how to use it.” – Seneca
Do you know how to use your time well? Or is the luxury worth the cost?
