If you'll notice, my statement began with "If you lived your whole life and the only thing you managed to accomplish was to be saved...". I never questioned the idea that one is saved by faith alone. Yet, despite the fact that I began the post by clearly stating that it is possible to be saved while at the same time wasting your life, people still chose to interpret this as a salvation through works statement.

Salvation is not the issue here. The issue is that God put you on Earth to accomplish certain things and if you failed to accomplish them, then you failed at the task for which God created you. You failed at the very reason for your existence. At that point, when you have died without having accomplished what God created you to do, your life was a failure.

Whether the consequences for failure are: eternal damnation, spending more time in purgatory, shame, less rewards in the afterlife, a lower caste or social status in the afterlife, suffering in this life, less rewards in this life, or even nothing at all; the fact remains you still failed. The consequences, if any, really shouldn't matter to us because the goal of our lives should not be the selfish goal of being saved, but rather the selfless goal of pleasing God.