You have 80 years.

80 years to build your career. Eighty years to be someone. Do something. Make an impact. Live a life worth living. And that's being generous. Any day, you may die in a drunk driving freak accident. You may die from a gas main igniting or a sinkhole. You may die from a murder, cardiac arrest, stage 4 respiratory cancer, a stroke, pneumonia, an infection, hell, even a single clumsy move, a forgotten decoration on the top shelf placed a little too close to the edge, could earn you a coma that you will never wake from. Eighty years is a generous estimation, and if you're reading this, chances are, you've more than likely burned through at least 10. That's 12.5%.

And here you are, doing nothing.

A fool. Nothing but a fool. You dream of the mountain's summit, yet you cannot be bothered to start climbing? And instead of choosing to climb higher, you decide to settle for a smaller mountain. And smaller yet, when that lower expectation does not motivate you to start your journey, until you die at base camp from any of the numerous aforementioned causes.

I received some advice from Fate once. "Time can be spent, time can be wasted, and time can be taken away. But time can never be refunded, time can never be earned back, and more time can never be gained." Imagine for me your life savings converted to powdered gold in a glass jar. All the money you will ever earn and ever spend is in that jar. If someone pokes a hole through the bottom and you cannot stop the gold from flowing away, what would you do? I imagine you'd run to the store and trade in all of that leftover gold for your lifetime's supply of food, water, entertainment, shelter, and every other sort of amenity you can think of.

So why haven't you done that with your time?

Humans are bad at life. Very bad at it. We aren't built to see life from the perspectives of others, our heads are quite literally almost too big to be birthed, and we have little to no innate physical defense or offense. But perhaps our worst trait is, despite all of our intelligence, our imagination, and pattern recognition, we are miserable at foresight. How many times have you procrastinated on a project only to finish it at the last minute and receive a failing grade?

Do you really want to do the same with your life? Do you really want a failing grade on that? There will be no corrections, mind you. What you get is what you get.

Time waits for no one, my friend. It is like a river. Whether there is a boat on the currents or not, it will flow hither, twenty-four hours a day, thirty days a month, twelve months a year, eighty years a lifetime. So it is in your best interest to undock as soon as possible and ride the current. It is the great equalizer.

Let me ask you something. How many hours does it take to master a skill?

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Everyone says 10,000 hours will, but to be proficient, I say a quarter of that suffices. Ask any person who has invested an ungodly amount of time into video games on their devices. That person may be yourself, but I digress. That person will tell you that at around 2,500 hours, you will be not only at an above-average skill level, but maybe even a genuinely outstanding player.

Let us add another layer.

2,500 hours is roughly 104 days, or about 28.5% of a year. If we assume that each adult spends eight hours asleep (which is generous, let’s be honest), eight hours at work, one hour for commuting, and two further hours for breakfast and dinner, that adds up to 19 hours. We get 5 hours of precious free time. For the sake of this argument, let us assume you are working a standard 40-hour work week, but if you work more, this does not discount you from the following, and if you work less, the following should apply to you even more.

Every week, you have 25 hours of free time across the weekdays and perhaps 26 hours on Saturday and Sunday. That adds up to 51. Take that into consideration. You have 127.5% as much freetime as you have work-time. And what have you done with it this last week?

You probably just replied with something defensive. Like “I went to the gym” or “I worked on an art project” or something just as pensive. But did that amount to even 25 hours?

Your time is spent on foolish things like lounging around consuming media others made. You know how long I’ve spent on this text? This one right here, which you’ve probably only spent a few minutes reading? Give or take one hour.

Now pull your phone out, if you aren’t on it already. Check your screen time. I bet half of you just grimaced.

You don’t want to confront reality. You’d rather stay in a bubble.

Because this will bring you great trouble. And you know it. And even though it worries you now, in a mere 15 minutes or so you will have moved on to the next work.

I will not tell you how to live your life. This is merely a small fragment of mine that I hope will help at least one of you. But if you want my advice, this is what I think you should be doing.

One week. Use one week of your 3,962 as an experiment. Track every little thing you do. 10 minutes in the bathroom, scrolling Reddit. 6 hours asleep. 10 hours in bed. And at the end of the week, look back on your data. What did you do with 168 entire hours?

Confront it. Do not run from it.

My father once told me that there are four “D’s” in life that should guide your every move: discipline, dedication, diligence, and determination.

Adopt these principles.

And when you finally reach your dream station, look back. See how far you’ve climbed. Then, look up, for you will always have much further to go.

I pray you have the strength to weather your journey, weary traveler, whether you’re young or old. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that every seed wastes no time in beginning to grow.