Life is short. We can let this depress us or it can be a call to action. If our time is limited then it must be valuable yet we kill it, waste it or worst of all we do not notice it passing. If we want to live our lives to the fullest then we have to live each moment as fully as possible. This does not mean we need to cram our schedule with shark diving or bungee jumping. It means we need to pay attention to what is happening now.
There are times each and every day where we feel we are just filling time, waiting for the next important thing to happen. While it is true that some events, actions or projects might have more impact on the course of our lives we also need to live like there are no filler activities.
This does not mean we should never find ourselves “just” doing something, instead we should learn to value the in-between times as much as we do the action times. This means giving our attention to the moment at all times. Just because we are only sitting and watching TV with friends does not mean we can let our minds wander. We should be in the moment enjoying our friends, the programming or the cat in our lap.
This is not to say that having time to let our minds wander is wrong, but it should be the purpose of the activity not a mistreatment of it. Even when we are allowing our minds to wander we should be in that moment as much as possible.
At the end of our lives we will not get back the moments we have spent killing time or waiting, we should make the most of them while we can. There is no filler.