'I just always kept thinking I had more time'.

That illusion, time (planning for 20 years ahead) is interesting. We put off living till later.

Is it not the root of fear? Fear of living too, spontaneously. Desires are contradictory and conflicting so cannot be a driving force if there is to be sanity.

Can desire end and living be day to day?

To reach an ideal in time, the belief in ideal is an illusion too.

Time, belief, ideal, fear, desire are products of thought in the fragmentary perception.