11 Things 20-Somethings Will Regret Wasting So Much Time On

We are part of a technology driven, easily offended, often offensive, over-analyzing, emotional generation. These circumstances and characteristics have led us down a path that tends to result in spending excessive amounts of time doing things that aren’t exactly profound. On their deathbeds, people tend to have regrets and ours will likely share a common disappointment in our habitual wasting of time. Here is the early screening of the series finale episode of your life. A preview of the things you’ll feel remorse for when you’re lying there, staring out the window, watching the cars fly by from the 225th story of the Apple iHospice that you’re withering away at.

1. Staring hypnotized at screens as you watch looping Vines & GIFs for a second, third, fourth, fiftieth time.

2. The countless attempts to take a flawless photo. Those perfect bathroom selfies aren’t a one-and-done cakewalk. We’re talking about hundreds or thousands of deleted pictures over a lifetime. Snap. Look. Say, “Ew, I hate it!” then repeat 42 times, before settling on what’s probably the exact same shot you initially took.

3. After many of those pictures are taken, following that up by carefully exploring and comparing various filters and edit features, hoping to concoct the best-looking Instagram picture possible. Meals go cold, sights go unseen and moments pass by as we wonder if X-Pro II is a better fit than Hefe. Basically the entire process of taking, editing and deciding on which photo makes the cut on your numerous social networks takes entirely too much time and energy.

4. Staying involved in relationships that you’re fairly certain won’t end well. For example, if marriage is what you eventually seek, but you stay involved in an unhealthy, 50 shades of high school immaturity connection, you’re not doing yourself any favors sticking around for predictable disaster.

5. The brutal, frustrating minutes it takes to make adjustments and rewrite your most brilliant tweets that don’t initially fit the ‘140 characters or less’ requirement.

6. Every non-Super Bowl commercial break you’ve ever sat through attentively.

7.  Exploring the massive selection Netflix has to offer, but never actually settling on anything. You do 30 minutes of browsing, then it’s just kind of like an exhausting movie and TV spelunking session and you’re exhausted.

8. Not spending as much time with family, potential lovers or just humans in general because phones, Internet and isolation tend to appeal more at any given moment. Also, when skipping gatherings to surf the web, but ending up lurking the people you don’t even know on social networks. Imagine how long you’ve spent on the profile page of someone you’ve never met or aren’t really friends with, but you stumbled upon their page and spent an absurd chunk of time examining the life of a stranger.

9. The time spent getting ready on those days you’re looking really, really good, but for absolutely no reason. Every strand of hair is in place, your outfit is on point, your confidence is high and you have nowhere to go. Or even worse, you go places but fail to run into anybody noteworthy for the entire day.

10. Writing out lengthy, paragraph long and/or negative comments expressing your opinion of a YouTube video or an article online. Even if you get some ‘thumbs ups’ and manage to have the top comment, if you took that much time out of your day to write out mean spirited words, that’s an unfortunate waste. Now, if your remarks are a rebuttal to make others think or a compliment to brighten someone’s day, doing something positive is never a waste.

11. The 15 seconds or so you wait every time you get a phone call and don’t want to answer. It feels rude to actually push the “IGNORE” button, considering it immediately goes to voicemail and exposes your rejection. Instead we let it ring for the sake of the caller’s emotions, before going back to playing Candy Crush. TC Mark

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