Exactly, man. Also yeah, my mom is amazing. I do take it too much for granted sometimes, though. But at the end of the day, I love her more than anything and I know she loves me the same. That's all that matters. Love to ya ♥️

While something between 70 to 90 years seem long for people, it's really not that much in the grand scheme of things.

You feel like you barely blink and a week is gone. Great, you're finished with work today, the month is already over. This process seems to speed up the older you become. As a child it felt like every hour was a day, now with 26 I feel like weeks are just flying. I don't consider myself old by any means but in just four years I'll be 30 already. I can still remember my 18th birthday like it was yesterday.

Life is too short, live the way you want to live. If you ever think to yourself "is this what I should be doing", don't think about wether you should do it. Think about wether or not it gives you joy. I'm a caretaker for the elderly not because of a sense of duty or because it's expected of me but because I want to help people who can't help themselves anymore.

Besides my passion for my field of work I'm also a gamer bar none, oftentimes "wasting" my days off with nothing but gaming. But I'll also grab a few books and read for a week or two if I feel like it. I learn different languages. I have recently taken up woodworking a little. I enjoy cooking a lot more. I started going out with friends again. I'm not doing these things because I should be doing them. I'm doing these things because they bring me joy. Something I can be proud of at the end of the day. Something other people will remember me by when I'll inevitably be gone one day. Because that's all that will remain, the memories of other people who knew you. It's a scary thought and wether or not an afterlife really exist I'm not really sure. But in the meantime between now and my inevitable death, I'll just enjoy the life I've been give doing things I want to do.

The most important thing is finding a balance for all of this. Obviously you shouldn't neglect work for hobbies unless you can make more money with them. Neither should you let work influence your off time. Friends and family are important. For the longest time, when my depression and anxiety hit rock bottom a few years ago, I neglected everything. My friends, my family and basically all other hobbies but gaming. I had thoughts of doing really, really bad things to myself. Even worse than in my youth when I was bullied throughout all years of school. Quite frankly, I didn't want to be alive anymore. But I just couldn't go through with it. The thought of my mother weeping for me was the hardest slap back to reality I've ever gotten.

She is my anchor, she is what keeps me going. I've always had to endure being called a momma's boy. I don't give a single rat's ass about that. Yes, I'm a momma's boy and I'm proud of it. My mother sacrificed basically her whole life for me. The unplanned child. The youngest of four, my other siblings being 10 to 15 years older. Heart condition from birth and boom, basically all of her late 30s and early to mid 40s were gone because of me. She sacrificed everything for me. Even today on the days I feel like an absolute failure she always tells me how proud she is. I'm not the best son, she isn't the best mother. We all have flaws. But to me she's the greatest person who will ever live and every single time she tells me she's proud of me, I know I didn't waste the life she nurtured despite being robbed of most of hers.

Your life isn't wasted because there's people who love you. People who care. Even if it's just one person that can be enough to know you're not wasting anything. True, unconditional love is the greatest gift anyone could ever give.

First off I want to give you my personal answers to these questions you asked. Just live a life you have fun living and that makes yourself proud. That's what I'm doing and I of course my depression sometimes kicks in. My anxiety gets the better of me even these days. I still have days where I'm in tears thinking I'm just a failure no one needs. But at the end of the day there are so many good things to live for. Yes, sometimes you have to actively go out and seek for these things, sometimes they just come to you. Every day can be an adventure. You just have to go, sometimes take a risk and have the best adventure of your only life. Our life is an adventure. Any adventure, no matter if successful or not, is worth it. Never a waste.

Second: I'm really, really sorry I wrote so much, it's far more than I intended to write. Have a cookie made of code for your trouble.