Try to spend your time throughout life more wisely and you’re thinking that must mean learning and doing mitzvos….. No but actually means try to spend your time more RESPONSIBLY instead of wasting your precious time of life Hashem gifted you with.
Hashem doesn’t say this person will live to 87 and this person until 103 but actually every day and hour is a decree that you should live another day “uvacharta b’chaim” choose life versus the opposite of wasting your time.
I was once approached by 3 people-at 3 different occasions-with the same question, Each person asked me, how he can learn to stop taking things for granted & instead appreciate them? I then replied to each one with a different answer. The first person that approached me was in a shul, before starting Shachris. I told him, most lessons a person learns in life take weeks & months to learn but this lesson takes only one hour to learn. I then opened up a siddur to birchas Hashachar. & showed him boruch… pokeach Ivrim (blessed be Hashem for giving sight to the blind) & told him why don’t you close your eyes for one hour, just one hour & then open it up to, the world to color & beauty etc… you will not know how to thank Hashem enough. I then gave him 2 other examples. Boruch… Matir Asurim (blessed be Hashem for releasing the prisoner) & told him why don’t you lock yourself in a empty room for 1 hour?-it doesn’t need to be a prison cell it could even have a little furniture, & then come out an hour later to freedom & the world etc…. Boruch… Zokeif Kefufim (blessed be Hashem for straightening the bent) & told him why don’t you stand straight for one hour, no knuckles, elbows or knees, & then loosen yourself free. You will not know how to thank Hashem enough for giving you so much… how would a person eat & put food in his mouth without using his elbows? These are just a few examples. The second person approached me & I replied to him from a different perspective, I Told him if a company of 1000 employees had a policy that all employees must hand in their cell phone from 9:00am-when they arrive-until 5:00pm-when they leave-when he would get it back (at 5:00pm upon leaving) the person would not just look at his missed calls & text messages but would actually start to see the beauty of “the cell phone” & everything that it does…. upon the Third person approaching me-in the midst of a major snowstorm on a friday night-& asked me how will he ever make it home in such deep snow & darkness? I asked him if he knew what I think of when I see snow at night? He replied no, so I told him of the pesukim we say during maariv & in the morning of, Hashem takes light from darkness & dark from lightness. i.e. what else could light up the entire ground in the midst of darkness like snow? With Hashem deciding on each storm how big it will be & each snowflake if it will stick-to the ground-or become water in mid-air etc… BOTTOM LINE: there is always a way to look at every situation in the positive way (from a big water bill in the mail to other sad situations or any other situation a person is in.)