Wasted time lowers your lifespan. If you lived 70 years, for example, but spent five years of wasted time in prison, then your life could not be 70 years of meaningful existence—unless your incarceration had transformed you into a better person.
Be enslaved, therefore, by time consciousness and consider timelessness as a prominent symbol of ignorance or academic mediocrity. Or, think about the soul as just the brain; and God, the natural product of malnutrition or sleeplessness or the analgesic of the poor.
One important life principle is to make sure we have the feeling of fulfillment and joy as we age. I heard about countless young people who did not have a sense of purpose as if life on earth will be young forever, and the grave is but a great storied fiction. Time is the utmost treasure of life. Hence, one important life principle is to focus our attention on the currency of time.
Life demands that everyone should follow its list of priorities, topped by food and marital stability. I heard someone say this typical family shibboleth: “College, job, family.” But Mary Kay’s philosophy of life was even superior: “God first, family second, career third.”