Reading vs. staring

I am trying at nights to stay away from screens (for my eyes' and sanity's sake), but I still end up staying up much too late reading. There are too many books already that are sitting around, waiting to be read. I finished Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett last night, whose stories I thoroughly enjoyed. I love how they are set in times where there are still huge things to be discovered, because it feels so differently from our days. I pulled this quote from the end:

What had he been doing these past years? What had he been so worried about? Fussing and struggling to build a practice, continue his research, establish himself—if he died now his life would have been only that, almost nothing, a chain of meaningless accomplishments and struggles. Why had he wasted so much time? When he was a boy, before his mother's death, he had understood the beauty of daily life. Somehow this had slipped his mind, and if he died now—but of course he would not die now, he was very sick but it was all right, he was young and strong and outside the sun shone on the meadows and gulls plunged into the river, emerging with fish in their beaks—if he died now it would be ridiculous, because all these years he had not been living but readying himself to live, stuffing himself with knowledge that would help him live later. All this time he'd been learning to live, and now he was ready to start his life.

Hits close to home. I should get on with my life now.