Many successful people say that even though time is given equally to everyone, your life will vary according to how you spend it. Although everyone knows the importance of time, it is still not easy to spend time efficiently. Especially, there are too many temptations, like smartphones, to waste time pointlessly. According to the 2019 Korean Level of SmartPhone Dependence Survey, conducted by the Ministry of Science/ICT and National Information Society Agency, 20% of Korean daily lives were disrupted by smartphones in 2019. Many people, including me, waste their time pointlessly even though they know the importance of time but never thought about how to spend it wisely.
  When I entered university, I decided to definitize my future career. At that time, I simply applied for the Department of International Business as I was interested in business and foreign languages. To definitize my future career, I planned to spend my time studying hard, doing part-time jobs, and participating in club activities. However, when I was a freshman, I wasted 12 hours per day because of a computer game and a smartphone. I still regret that I wasted a lot of time and threw away my life. At that time, I justified my actions because I thought most young people wasted a lot of time. Finally, although I ended my freshman year, I still didn’t have any concrete plans for my future career.
  While I was doing military service, I keenly felt the importance of time. Before doing military service, I wasted a lot of time but at least I was in control of my time. However, in the military, my time was usually controlled by other factors rather than me. I couldn’t even have a rest when I wanted to, but had to work or get trained every day. Especially when I underwent battalion field exercise for 3 weeks, not only doing hard exercise but also standing guard, sleep was the only break time for me. When I stood guard at a sentry post in the last week of the exercise, suddenly I was reminded of the old days. ‘For the time being, I am contributing my time to the country to fulfill my military duty. However, why did I waste a lot of time before doing military service even if I had a chance to control my time.’ I was so angry at myself for spending a lot of time doing nothing. Also, I decided that I am not going to waste my time anymore but spend it meaningfully in the future.
  Since then, I have thought about my future goals and plans and how to accomplish them. First, I have taken exercise regularly to improve my stamina in order to spend time briskly. Furthermore, as I didn’t want to waste my time mindlessly in the military, I got not only a certificate for level 1 in computer application but also improved my TOEIC score. After being discharged from military service I took a part-time job in a café, participated in stock investment club activities, and wrote articles for CBT. These experiences helped me to discover not only what I am going to do in the future, but also a lot about my character. Moreover, I got the highest grades last semester by studying hard and received a full scholarship grant from the university.
  Of course, it was not easy to accomplish these results. Sometimes, I still wasted my time due to smartphones and computer games. However, as I was determined to spend my time meaningfully, I could take control of my time well by using a study diary and smartphone lock application.
  As a result of hard effort, I set my future career as an accounting specialist and have studied hard to get the related certificate. By investing time in my future, I could now definitize my future career while I was unable to do so when I was a freshman. Also, nowadays, I am spending my time to realize my future career. As people have their own unique values and life goals, the criteria of meaningful time vary from person to person. For example, although computer games are meaningless to me, they aren’t to professional gamers. Also, the meaningful things to me, like business studies, could be meaningless to someone else. The important thing is using your time meaningfully according to your own life goals and values. If you do not have clear goals, you should definitize them by investing your time to do diverse activities and to think about yourself. Time never comes back once it is gone. Keeping this in mind, why don’t you spend your time meaningfully for your life?