Reflection: What Advice Would You Give To Your Younger Self?

Over the years I have made many mistakes and most of them revolve around Time. How I spent my time, how I wasted it, and how I thought about it. There are many cliches about time. Time flies. Time is of the essence. Living on borrowed time. Each one strikes at the core of reality. Time is the most precious commodity and our entire world seems to be built on mining that gem.

Guard your time.

Everywhere you look, people and businesses have neon green signs hoping to lure you in and have you spend your time. In exchange, you might receive companionship, a genuine connection, money, cheap pleasure, or momentary satisfaction. Some exchanges are worth it. While others are just scams that got you to spend your commodity.

Don’t spend your time on a cycle of mindless consumption.

You need to be very careful to whom or to what you give your time to. Be stingy with it. Lock your precious time in a vault and only spend it if it will enhance your life. Not only will you never get it back but you are moulded and influenced by the purchases you make with your time. And like all purchases, there are good and bad ones. The bad ones can ruin you the same as drugs or alcohol. These purchases will take your precious commodity and leave you with fleeting moments of pleasure. They won’t add any layer of substance to your life. Instead, they will pick away at you and leave you bruised and broken.

Spend your time on people and things that will add a sense of vibrancy to your life. Enhance it and not deplete it.

The mindless purchasing is tricky and addicting. If you’re not careful, you will go bankrupt. The bankruptcy is not just in the form of physical death as time runs out and you’re out of your last breath. But there is also the death of the spirit. Instead of using your time to unpack who you really are, you spend it hiding away from yourself, distracting yourself, doing whatever you can to avoid the uncomfortable reality of sitting alone, in solitude, and hearing yourself for the first time.

Spend time on solitude and self-reflection. These investments will pay dividends.

There is also the death of your dreams. Only action can give life to your dreams. But instead of giving life, you spent the energy merely consuming and now that period is past you. Something akin to menopause settles and all you’re left with is the possible adoption of other people’s dreams or lies that you tell yourself about not wanting to give birth to your own dreams.

Use your time to create. Create moments, create art, create yourself, create love, create your life.

As time goes by, there is also the death of meaningful moments. The genuine human connection. The bond of family and friends is vital to the human experience but it’s rendered secondary to the virtual bonds or imaginary ones by your spending habits. Spending your time having comfortable moments with your loved ones or uncomfortable talks will help you grow and mature as an individual. This maturation requires making sacrifices. Sacrificing simple joys and pleasures for moments that require effort and hardship. But too often we spend our time shying away from what’s uncomfortable in the present moment and by doing so, we fail to mature.

Maturation requires healthy spending habits.

Who could you have been? Mentally, physically, spiritually. What life could you have lived? What moments could you have experienced? What relationships could you have nurtured? If only you knew how to spend your precious commodity the right away.

So, prioritize your time. Spend it connecting with your family and friends, with your dreams, with higher traits and characteristics and whatever loose change is left over, give it to things begging for your attention or better yet, save it and invest it in more fulfilling endeavours down the road.

Originally published at http://learnedliving.org on December 14, 2023.