As seen on A Philosopher's Stone https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/the-shortness-of-life-c1afb0126bd3
Life can seem like it drags on sometimes.
When I am waiting for 5 o’clock, on a long drive, or on the line at a supermarket, I find myself waiting for it to end.
This can also be said for the future.
Whether I’m waiting to get my dream job or going on vacation, sometimes I feel like I have an anxious dependence on the future — like I just want to skip forward in time and be there already.
When I eventually achieve my goal or get to the desired time, I also find myself wishing for some future date.
Don’t get me wrong — accomplishing something feels incredible — but the glory soon fades after the passage of an inevitable bit of time.
So how can we truly be happy if we are constantly wanting to be in a future moment and when we get there it loses its luster and we repeat the process?
Life can feel like a race from objective to objective. Always dizzyingly chasing the next best thing and never being satisfied.
So what we should do is live in the present.
Enjoy what the current moment has to offer. Feel the breeze, see the beauty, and even be conscious of the things annoying you.
Think, “maybe this guy mowing the lawn or cutting me off in traffic is annoying, but it is a privilege to be alive and experience it.”
Why do you want the inconvenience to stop? So you can focus on your Netflix show?
We need to come to terms with the fact that life is a series of moments. Most people would call these boring. But I think being happy means coming to terms with the fact that most of life is just these moments.
Whenever you are uncomfortable or faced with an issue, it is a good idea to think that if you were dead this is what you would be missing out on. Death can be seen as freedom from this mundaneness.
But while we are alive we must experience and live meaningful lives.
To me, this doesn’t mean getting the most money, fame, or belongings.
It means doing everything in your power to be good, help others, and practice kindness.
We spend our lives collecting meaningless material goods and easily disregard our most valuable resource of time, giving it to anyone that asks.
If life is spent on wealth, fame, and, ambition, it is meaningless and will easily be swept away in the winds of time. These material goods are like drugs that one is never satisfied with once achieved. Even if there is some sort of satisfaction, it is quickly replaced by emptiness and lack of meaning.
If life is spent pursuing justice, kindness, and helping others — that is meaning.
For the short time we are given here we have two options: to live in anxious anticipation of the future and curse your fortunes or to accept the present and love whatever it is fate throws at you.
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy” (Seneca, On The Shortness of Life).