20 Reminders For When You Feel Like You’ve Wasted Most Of Your Life
No time is wasted. You might not feel like it, but you’ve gained experiences and grown from them. Every step is progress. Every day is one from which you learn, even if you don’t realize.
If you’re feeling unproductive lately, take this life advice from Ask Reddit.
1. You are younger today than you ever will be again.
2. A lot of regrets come from the fact that hindsight is 20/20: you have no idea how much you missed out on in the moment. You think about it after the fact.
3. Worrying about time you’ve already “wasted” is simply wasting more time. Get up and make the life changes you need to.
4. No time is wasted. You’re here to live. There’s no measuring stick that judges you by what you have or haven’t done. We’re here to gain experience, and experience can range from observing a koi fish in a pond to having a child to creating a painting to caring for a sick relative.
You’re on your own timeline. Every day you’re alive and you haven’t terminated your life on this planet, you’re learning and growing and doing what you were sent here to do.
Life is often hard, and we’re not perfect and we don’t always do the things that we think we should. But you’ve not wasted anything.
Think about it. There probably are a lot of things when you were growing up that threw some handicaps your way. People, events, circumstances. You often didn’t have control of those things, but they still happened. So, knowing that those things happened to you, unbidden, and you dealt with them the best way you could with your level of maturity or understanding, how on earth is that your fault? How could you be responsible for wasting time?
5. Get off your ass and make the most of the time you have. The past is done but you can learn from it.
6. “Time you enjoyed wasting was not time wasted.” – John Lennon
7. Everything you did has lead you to this point. Maybe you think you wasted 3 years at a company you hated but those 3 hated years propelled you into your job or position today.
8. Think about other people who wasted ALL the time in their life, you’ll feel better about your life.
9. Stop living in the past. You can only be happy if you make the best of each current moment in life. Don’t worry about the future.
It’s never too late to change something. You create your own reality. Remember, you will never feel ready to take that first step.
10. There is a Chinese saying: ”The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best is today.”
11. Come to the realization that a lot of people have never realized that their life needed to change and make positive decisions to improve your life little by little, it takes time but you can look at each day and say that you’re already stronger than the person you were yesterday.
12. No time is wasted. You might not feel like it, but you’ve gained experiences and grown from them. Every step is progress. Every day is one from which you learn, even if you don’t realize.
13. Change it, take a serious self evaluation, and set a goal. Then set baby steps to achieve that goal, celebrate your victories and don’t beat yourself up with your losses.
It’s never too late to change, to do what you want to do. You’ll never be on your death bed saying, “Oh I wish I hadn’t said yes to going dancing, or seeing that beautiful natural scenery,” but you will think, “I wish I hadn’t spent so much time at a job that didn’t give me anything back.”
14. No time is wasted. You learned something from whatever it was you were doing, even if it’s that you’d rather do things that are more productive. So don’t waste more worrying about it, just live the life you want to live.
15. Just keep going. I’m allowed to cry about it but I keep going.
16. You can’t get that time back so worrying about it is like getting charged double for something you didn’t need in the first place.
17. The idea of ‘wasted’ time is really human. We can’t do anything to time, it just goes.
It’s cool to experience time at all. Acknowledge your feelings and then be happy.
18. Life is not a journey leading up to a certain point. You are not working toward retirement like something big will happen one day. Like music it should be enjoyed from beginning to end. While some parts might not be as exciting as others, please try to find joy in whatever you have now. You will be fine.
19. Go out and build a fence. Run a race. Chat with a stranger. Apply for a new job. Learn a new skill. The world is your oyster. Just don’t sit at home watching reruns of old TV shows while wishing you weren’t wasting your time.
20. What is properly using time in your life? Pretty much just somebody’s opinion, so who cares what I’m doing with my time? 