What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

You can spend years treating the present as a down payment on something later, and the later never arrives in the form you pictured. The hours you are in are not a rehearsal for the result. They are the thing itself, and they are the only part you actually get to hold.

Pick one thing this week you are doing only for its outcome, and notice what it is like while you are doing it. If it is grim the whole way through, that matters as much as the prize at the end. Ask what would change if the doing had to be worth something on its own.