7 | Wasting your life away
April 8, 2019
When someone asks me what my biggest fears is, I say it is wasting my life away. It’s a scary thought. Life is so short that I don’t want to spend it doing nothing. In this solo episode, I touch on how it is easy to get caught up in doing autopilot tasks like scrolling through social media, watching Netflix, and how to change by doing things with intention. The three questions to ask yourself: One, does this add value to my life? Two, is this purposeful? Three, does this put me at ease or make me happy?
Transcript:
When you ask me what my biggest fear is, I will tell you it is wasting my life away. It’s a scary thought. Life is too short and I don’t want to spend it doing nothing.
I want to feel like when I look back at the previous day, last week, last month, or last year I can tell you what I was doing and was doing something that makes me proud.
I feel I’m wasting my life away when I can’t explain why I’m doing something. For example, it’s Sunday and there are a few tasks you need to get done, but not enough that it will take up my whole day. While I’m putting off completing the tasks or after actually finishing the tasks, I start scrolling through Instagram.
Scrolling through Instagram for twenty minutes is fine. But then I check instagram again for another twenty minutes. Then some more time passes and I check instagram for another twenty minutes. I check Instagram over and over again, until eventually, I have probably spent the past six hours scrolling through the same pictures a million times and gotten to the point where I’m hoping someone posts something new so I have something to look at.
What!? What did I just spend my whole day doing? Why did I just spend my whole day doing that? I don’t even want to look at that thing in my settings where it tells me how much time on spent on an application. Why did I just spend my whole day doing that? I couldn’t tell you.
It’s Sunday night and I get ready to write in my journal as I usually do. I literally have nothing to write about my day. Why is that? It’s because I spent it doing something that I didn’t see as adding value to my life. It wasn’t purposeful. It didn’t make me happy.
For some, strolling through Instagram for five hours does add value to their life. It is purposeful and does make them happy. That’s awesome. Go you! However, for me, it doesn’t do any of those things.
When I get my journal at the end of the day, I want to write down the things and people that made me happy throughout the day. I want to write down the interesting thoughts I had from the podcast I listened to or the book I read. I want to write down the things that I was scared to do, didn’t do, or was proud of doing.
I know. I get it. It is easy to fall into those monotonous things you do. You can’t explain why you do it, but you are most likely bored. For some people, it’s napping, snacking, drinking, or Netflix. For me, my autopilot task scrolling through Instagram and other social media.
I remember when I first moved my new city and started my new job. I didn’t know my routine, the area, or other people. I found myself coming home from work each night, maybe or maybe not going to the gym, and then scrolling through Instagram for hours until it was time to go to sleep.
I try to challenge myself and I want to challenge you to do things with intention. Ask yourself questions: “Does doing this add value to my life?” “Is this purposeful?” “Does this put me at ease or make me happy?” Spending time on things that answer “Yes” to those questions are going to be things that are most meaningful and fulfilling to you.
Doing things with intention will make you proud when you write in your journal at the end of the day.
It’s a small, but big step to putting your best foot forward in your life.