Burning Time

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."

― Seneca

Today, I need to give you a hard truth. Most of you aren’t living. You’re waiting. You’re planning. You’re stuck in a perpetual state of “once I fix this, then I’ll be happy.”

You’re spending almost your entire life wanting to change your life, rather than actually living it.

Think about your day so far. How much of it was spent in the present moment, simply experiencing the world? And how much of it was spent ruminating on a problem? Worrying about your bank account, feeling guilty about that piece of cake, replaying an argument in your head, dreaming of the day you’ll finally have the bigger house or the better job.

You’ve been sold a lie. The lie is that you are a project that needs to be constantly worked on, a fixer-upper that’s never quite finished. And while you’re busy drawing up the blueprints for a future, hypothetical version of yourself, the life you actually have is slipping through your fingers, second by second.

The Fine Line Between Improvement and Obsession

Now, let’s get one thing straight. I’m not against self-improvement. Not at all. Wanting to learn a new language, improve your fitness, or get your finances in order are noble goals. Making positive, concrete changes in your life to allow these things to occur is fantastic. That’s growth. That’s proactively engaging with your life.

The poison is not in the desire to change; it’s in the wallowing. It’s when the desire to change becomes your dominant state of being. It’s when you allow your focus on your perceived flaws to degrade and overshadow every other part of your existence. You’re so fixated on the one cracked tile that you fail to see that the rest of the house is warm, comfortable, and filled with things you love.

When you constantly tell yourself, "I'll be happy when I lose 10 pounds," you are actively choosing to be unhappy now. When you believe that peace will only come "once I'm out of debt," you are refusing to allow peace into your life today. This isn’t motivation; it’s a sophisticated form of self-harm.

You are punishing the current version of you for not being a future, imaginary version. You are sacrificing the present for a future that is never guaranteed. And in doing so, you are wasting the single most precious, non-renewable resource you will ever have.

Time.

Your Life in Numbers: A Brutal Reality Check

We don’t like to think about it, but our time is horrifyingly finite. If you are lucky enough to live to the age of 80, you have 4,160 weeks.

Let that sink in. Four thousand, one hundred and sixty weeks. That’s only 960 months. Meaning probably less than 600 pay packets.

Now let’s take off the first thousand for childhood, when you had little control. You’re left with roughly 3000. How many have you already spent? How many of the remaining weeks are you willing to burn on the altar of worry? How many more Mondays will you sacrifice to anxiety? How many more weekends will be clouded by a vague sense of dissatisfaction?

You can’t get them back. You can’t earn more. You can’t buy them. Once a week is gone, it is gone forever, erased from your account. Spending a week worrying about a problem you can't solve today is like taking a £100 note out of your wallet and setting it on fire. You’d never do that, yet you do it with your time, which is infinitely more valuable.

The way you’re living, fixated on your problems, is a betrayal of the gift of that time.

The Skier’s Secret: Where Your Focus Goes, Your Life Follows

I use an analogy with my clients at Naiture Within that I want to share with you.

Imagine you're a skier, poised at the top of a mountain covered in trees. Your goal is to get to the bottom safely. You have two choices for where to put your focus.

You can stare at the trees. You can map out every single one, worrying about its thickness, its position, the danger it represents. You can become obsessed with the obstacles. And I can promise you, with absolute certainty, what will happen: you will crash into a tree. Your brain and body have a subconscious habit of steering you towards whatever you fixate on.

Or, you can choose to look at the gaps between the trees. You can ignore the obstacles and focus all your intention on the clear, open paths of snow. Your gaze softens, you see the route, the flow. And magically, your skis follow your gaze, and you navigate the forest with grace and ease.

Your life is that mountainside. Your problems are the trees. For too long, you have been staring at the trees. You’re fixated on your debt, your weight, your difficult boss, your past mistakes. You give them all your energy, all your focus. And so, you crash. You get stuck. You find yourself tangled in the very things you were trying to avoid.

It’s time to start looking for the gaps.

The gaps are the good things in your life that you’ve been taking for granted. The taste of your morning coffee. A moment of shared laughter with a colleague. The feeling of the sun on your skin. The fact that you have a body that can walk, a mind that can think. These aren’t small things; they are everything. They are the path through the forest. By focusing on them, you don't magically make the trees disappear, but you find a way to navigate around them.

The Key: The Radical Act of Doing Nothing

So what’s the answer? It’s both simpler and harder than you can imagine.

I want you to try something. Right now, as you read this.

For just a moment, drop everything.

I mean it. Let go of it all. The good, the bad, the to-do list, the worries, the ambitions, the regrets. Let your plans for the future fall away. Let your stories about the past dissolve. Stop trying to improve yourself. Stop trying to fix anything. Stop grasping. Stop wanting.

Just be.

Become aware of the simple act of your own existence. Feel the chair beneath you. Notice the rhythm of your own breathing. Listen to the ambient sounds in the room, without judgement. Just for this single, fleeting moment, you are not a project. You are not a problem to be solved. You are a human being, simply being.

Now, ask yourself this question with brutal honesty: In this exact moment, not the next one, not yesterday’s, this one, does anything truly need to be different?

In that sliver of pure awareness, the answer is always no. In the reality of the present moment, you are wanting for nothing. You are complete. You are a unique being that has never existed before and will never exist again. This is the perfect time for you to be you, because no one else can be.

This is the release. This is the escape from the prison of your own mind. The pain, the suffering, the anxiety, most of it is self-inflicted. It’s a story you are telling yourself about how things should be. By dropping into the present, you stop telling the story and you start living the reality.

This isn’t about ignoring your problems. It’s about ceasing to let them colonise your entire existence. You deal with the trees when you need to, but you live your life in the beautiful, wide-open gaps in between.

Your inner nature knows this. It doesn’t worry about tomorrow’s weather; it simply exists in today’s. It’s time you learned to do the same.

Stop waiting to live. Your 4000 weeks are ticking down. The gaps are there. Start looking for them. Your life is happening right now. Don't miss it.