r/GetMotivated • u/hardwireddiscipline • 7d ago
DISCUSSION Rules to Stop Wasting Life [Discussion]
Most of us aren’t really living, we’re just wasting time.
We tell ourselves we’ll start tomorrow.
We drown in comfort.
We numb ourselves with noise.
The Stoics warned us about this. They weren’t just philosophers, they were people fighting against the same weaknesses we face today. Seneca put it brutally: “It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
Lately I’ve been asking myself: how much of my time is really lived, and how much is just wasted?
The 4 Stoic rules that keep coming back to me are:
- Remember you’re dying (Memento Mori)
- Choose pain over comfort
- Stop lying to yourself
- Do the work in silence
For me, comfort as a slow poison is the hardest truth. It’s so easy to slip into scrolling, eating, or procrastinating and call it “rest.” But it’s not rest. It’s wasting life.
What about you? Which of these rules feels most urgent in today’s world, and why?
4
u/Loud_Huckleberry2363 7d ago
I have an important university entrance exam coming up in a month, and I haven't seriously started studying yet. This isn't how I used to be. In school, I was a high achiever; I took my studies seriously. While I enjoyed watching cartoons and playing games, I always managed to study on time. Now, this is my third gap year after finishing college, and I don’t know what happened to me. I’ve become anti-social and rarely go out only once every 3 to 4 months. I feel like I've hit rock bottom in my life.
I know I procrastinate a lot and tend to aim for perfection, but I don’t have the answers on how to fix it. I desperately want to return to my former self, yet I still haven't found a solution. I work on improving myself, but I keep failing again and again. This cycle of misery just continues.