It hurts me deeply to see my peers wasting their most valuable asset… their lives.

My teammates, neighbors, classmates and family members who are close to my age all suffer from a disease… the disease of triviality. It is a very common mistake to think the most important reason to do something is because it’s fun. Amusement and entertainment run our lives and Facebook, while useful, is a good example of this. “Fun” is the only adjective we care about. And a soul that gets its pleasure from trivial things, like television, doesn’t even miss the satisfaction it could get from activities that carry adjectives like “God-glorifying” or “character-building” in the same way a fish doesn’t miss air (no one should argue that most of the things on tv are completely unimportant). You get used to it and you start to enjoy water. Sadly, the result is a mind, body, and soul that are all well adjusted to triteness, which only leads to mediocrity. But don’t get confused here, watching less television doesn’t imply that your life will instantly be filled with a profound purpose and meaning. It’s just a start. But I’ve noticed that I became a man when I stopped wasting my time, energy, and effort on things that were inconsequential and starting using my livelihood on things that ACTUALLY MATTERED!!! In other words, the line that divides the insignificant from the purposeful is the same line that divides adolescence from manhood. That’s is why you will never catch me in an argument over a video game or whether Lil’ Wayne is better than Kanye West. Who cares? But I’ve seen people literally fight over that.
But that’s the catch. They want you to focus on the irrelevant so you won’t reach your potential. They invite you to do the petty, not the profound. They desire you to do the superficial, not the significant. But you can refuse. So I’m challenging everyone, especially young men, including myself. Don’t waste your life. Find purpose in everything you do. One of the worst things I can imagine is being 80 years old and, having looked back on my life, say, “I wasted it.”
This is Paul’s definition of an un-wasted life. “According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20-21 NKJV)

Furquan Nafis Shamsud-Din