This makes me so anxious and depressed. I'm convinced that nothing will make you more unhappy than reading articles like this about how you're doing your life wrong. A good life seems to come from being content with a bad one.
I'll say a little bit about my personal perception of life's length. I've always thought it was long. Too long. And I still do. My school-age years lasted an eternity, and that was an eternity ago. From 18-22, when I was homeless, lasted an eternity, and that was an eternity ago. From 22-28, my early career when I was struggling to establish myself, was an eternity. From 28-34, when I had the most material comfort, career success, world travel, friends, hobbies, and lovers... well of course that went by too fast, but boy was it packed! From 34-38, when I struggled and suffered after the onset of Bipolar 1, and slowly learning to live with it while struggling with spotty employment, ruined credit, alienation, and more homelessness, was an eternity. The next 2 years, when I finally got around to doing the work I really wanted to do, flew by in a blur of happy 100+ hour weeks. Now I'm 40, and time is going faster, but it's possible that life is only half over. On one hand, that seems incomprehensible to me. How can I only be half-done? If I learned I would definitely die tomorrow, I would still consider my life to have been very, very long, and very full. But in another sense, no amount of time is enough to do all the work I want to do. I have at least a dozen large project ideas, designed on paper in a fair amount of detail, that life is too short to do. I probably have enough time for 2 of them. That is a little bit frustrating, but meh.
I'm trying to resolve these two different views. Basically, for the specific purpose of finishing a dozen ambitious personal projects, life is too short. I do the best I can by spending very little time doing paid work, and living like a monk to afford it. But the subjective feeling about the length of the journey - all its different chapters that seem like eons, each one like its own lifetime - my feeling is that it is TOO DAMN LONG.
Maybe it's only 1/3 over, or depending on medical advances, less than that!
I especially find the "you only get X weekends with Y" formulation depressing. It makes it sound worse than it is, and enforces a valuation that may not at all be true for you.
That 5% of time may be a significant portion of the experience (for lack of a better word).
I mean, while that IS a valid approach, you have to also keep in mind that the more you can "go without", the better the position you are in to improve your life.
To change requires you not to be running at 100% all the time. You have to find a way to save some oomph for lateral growth when the way up seems to be blocked. Without that oomph, you'll never get out of where you are.
There's a lot of anxiety in the idea that you're "wasting" your life. You feel anxious about every day, worrying that you aren't doing enough even though you don't really want to do more. For instance, I might worry too much that I'm using my free time poorly that I don't enjoy it, and therefore waste it, which only causes me to think that I am wasting my life. Some amount of stress/anxiety is good because it gets you out of bed and doing something, but encouraging it too much is debilitating.
Start with baby steps to get used to good habits. If you do no exercise, start doing 2 pushups or 2 squats.
Clean your room. Organize your house a bit. Make a very easy to follow, unambitious schedule. Once you get comfortable, refine it very slowly.
If you are going to use social networks to stay in contact with friends, keep a countdown. 20 minutes a day total works for me. Same for TV/Netflix/reddit. Meet up with your folks more often, listen more and don't be a drag. Try to stay positive in spite of a bad situation. There's light at the end of the tunnel.
Go to bed early and listen to interesting audiobooks. You either fall asleep early or you advance your reading, win-win. Start decreasing the amount of processed foods and replace all drinks to water or tea.
The key is you gradually change as you need to retrain your brain to good habits. Same with your gut microbiome and your fitness.
You don't know your full potential.
(Many bits taken from JP)
Everything already is. Relax. Nothing needs to be done. There is no need to be anything special. Look at the sky all night. Start a start-up. Stay in bed all day. It makes no difference. Whatever you are doing, you are already dancing in the dance of nothingness. Be there.
How could it possibly not?
When reflecting, I check to make sure I'm striving to live in a way that aligns with my values and long-term goals, and that my values and goals still make sense, given my current understanding of myself and life.