Every day we feel like we don't have enough time to do the things we want. Things get in our way, and our plans often have to take a back seat. Paradoxically, we keep finding the time to go social networking and whittling off likes and comments that usually don't matter in the long run. ("Usually", because if we're not careful with our words, we can still do a great deal of damage.)
Some factors may be involved in how we wrongly prioritise our time.
1) Impulsivity
We live in a consumer culture where things change quickly. Some of us want the latest gadgets. Others want to know the most updated news. In either case, we want novelty quickly. We cannot feel settled in the things we know, because experience has somehow taught us that catching up with the Joneses will help us be more informed, more advantageous and more successful.
2) Lack of patience
On top of the novelty, we cannot sit still anymore without playing with our phones or other devices, because they are so cool. They are our e-readers, our phones (well), our news feed, our personal television sets, our computers... everything. We get frustrated when we are forced to wait because there is so much going on that we might miss, and we don't want to miss a thing because it means that we may miss out on something great.
3) Nosiness
Yes, it is good to be interested in other people, because that's the first step in making friends. The problem is that we may be interested in the wrong aspects of other people, and the results could be either annoying or even creepy. Facebook can boast of its user count because everyone is posting about themselves, their work, their songs, their movies, their food, their events and their lives, and if we're not careful to draw the line between mere gossip and information about other people in order to make meaningful connections, then it's a recipe for relationship disaster.
4) Overestimation of one's abilities
I personally find it very hard to quit writing long to-do lists. It's tempting to believe that we are superhuman and able to accomplish infinitely many things, but the cruel reality is that we can't. Some things are more important than others, other may be more urgent, and the rest are neither. There are so many things that divide our attention and so it's important not to get bogged down by them. Some things may also be unimportant in the long run. Say, if you are attracted to the ukulele, does that mean that you are able to spend time mastering it? Does everything else in life support a pursuit in this musical journey or are things working against you? Is it worthwhile to pursue something or is that something just an embellishment, a fanciful idea? These are things to ponder.
5) Excuses for not living out the life you want
Fanciful as our ideas may be, much could be said about finding one's element, knowing your direction in life or discovering your life's purpose. Our problem is that instead of moving towards our desires, we have an inherent fear. We are scared to be successful because it's neurologically similar to experiencing trauma, so we come up with reasons to lie low and not be the people we really want to be. We try to zone ourselves in the comfort zone. We friend-zone or shut out completely people interested in us, because we fear that they would trouble us. We do not take the "other" out to lunch. That's how we imprison ourselves, and the worst part is that when we look back, we don't even know what we've missed.
We only live once, and however we wish for it, time doesn't go back. Poet Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney penned these words:
Little drops of water, little grains of sand,
make the mighty ocean, and the beauteous land.
And the little moments, humble though they may be,
make the mighty ages of eternity.
Our moments define our lives. Let's make the most of them.