I still remember it as if it was yesterday, although it was actually many years ago.
It was my last semester in university. To be more precise, the last day. I had three final exams on the same day. Three grades would decide whether I would be awarded my degree or have to go through yet another semester.
As you can imagine, I was under a lot of pressure. The exams were naturally difficult and the added pressure of succeeding or "wasting" another semester of my life didn't make things any easier. I spent a good part of the evening before studying and most of the day trying to apply what I learned and hoping I could keep my sanity until the last test.
After I wrote the very last word (or number, I can't really remember) of the final exam I felt tremendous relief. I had no idea then whether I had passed all 3 exams (spoiler, I did) but I could honestly tell myself that I'd done everything under my power to maximize my chances of success and that was really all I could do.
I remember very little of my way back home that day but I do remember I got home a little after 4pm and I immediately crashed on my bed and feel asleep until the next day. It was one of the best nights sleep I had in my entire life.
The fact that I was mentally and physically exhausted certainly contributed for that feeling but I believe the main reason for that was the fact that I accomplished what I set myself up to that day. I realley "earned" my sleep.
I've been chasing that same feeling ever since. I haven't been able to reproduce it 100%, and I'm not sure I ever will because of the very unique circumstances that revolved around that day (maybe a story for another time), but I've gotten pretty close.
Days are long but years are short
This is something that kind of blew my mind when I heard it for the first time because I can 100% relate.
I'm a very busy person, and I have a lot of to-do's every single day. That sometimes makes me feel my days are terribly long and yet, at the same time, sometimes I "blink" and an entire week passed by.
It really bothers me because I feel like life is slipping away and I haven't done a lot of the things I promised myself I would and that's why my mindset now is to try and make every day count.
That doesn't necessarily mean passing 3 life-defining exams every single day or getting to the edge of physical exhaustion like I did that fatidical day but it does mean making sure that I accomplished something.
It could be something big or something small but, whatever it is, it better be something that puts me closer to my goals.
If I can live like that, one day after another, I'm sure I won't feel like the years are so short any more.
So this is my suggestion for you: earn your sleep and make every day count.
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I like the saying "Days are long but years are short". I also like - though this probably doesn't apply to you - Seneca's "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it."
Oh that's a great one too!
I recently got into stoicism and I'm reading some of Seneca's stuff but I didn't know that one
I believe it comes from On the Shortness of Life - a series of letters written to Paulinus who was Rome's grain superintendent.
Thanks, I'll look it up!