Via Niklas Göke:

Robert Greene once told Ryan Holiday that there are two kinds of time: Alive time and dead time.

Dead time is when you wait for life to happen to you instead of for you. It’s when nothing seems to change for the better, yet when you take an honest look at the last six months, you realize all you’ve done is complain.

Alive time is when you’re making it count. It is when you do your best every day, no matter how hopeless or unfortunate your current situation may seem. You focus on what you control and try your best to learn and get better.

The idea behind this distinction, of course, is that whether you spend your time being “alive” or “dead” is up to you…