Take a break to write. Write about what you read. Writing is thinking and thinking is hard. You won't want to do this too much. But you should try it to anyway to stay sharp.
Talk to your neighbors. Get to know them. Lend them your books. Invite them over for tea. Play games. Share stories. Help them with chores. Get involved in their lives.
Put down your phone. Use the Internet deliberately and in small doses.
Keep a garden. And read in it.
I'd add this - write on paper if/whenever possible, instead of computer.
And here was me thinking it was a self reinforcing survivor-ship bias.
Anyone thinking of taking this advice and starting a family should be aware of a few things.
- A number of studies have been conducted on the impact of marriage/kids on personal happiness. Married people report that their children are the largest source of happiness in their lives, but singles report higher overall happiness. On the other hand, married people tend to live longer and have better health outcomes.
- Long-term, married couples (20+ years) report way higher happiness in old age than elderly singles.
- The largest source of marital stress is finances (you can invest a practically infinite amount in raising a kid and the pressure to invest more so is high). So if you're not financially secure you probably shouldn't take the parent's advice.
- For men: the majority of divorces are female-initiated and the most common reason given is infidelity. So if you aren't comfortable with having just one sex partner for the rest of your life, getting married is a risky proposition.
It's fair to say that marriage and kids are a high risk, high reward, life-altering proposition. Everyone has to draw their own conclusions about the exact risk/reward profile for them. As a man my take is that the later in life you do it, the better off you'll be. Older men tend to be more financially secure and have lower libidos, mitigating the two largest risks of getting married. There's arguably some social responsibility to not have kids if you won't do a good job of raising them -- if you're going to mess up the person you bring into the world, it's probably best for society if you don't conceive in the first place.
Still, finding love later in life is quite a good thing. If it happens, then that's wonderful.
Less sarcastically, this vastly depends on the culture and time you were born in. For women even just fifty years ago this was the only option they had. Now we see people finding more satisfaction in their careers, travels, public service and so forth.
http://fortune.com/2016/05/09/mothers-marriage-parenthood/
Comparing couples with and without children, researchers found that the rate of the decline in relationship satisfaction is nearly twice as steep for couples who have children than for childless couples. In the event that a pregnancy is unplanned, the parents experience even greater negative impacts on their relationship.
It’s even worse for women than for men.
I for one do not like small children. Everything about small children and babies irritate me and I never wanted to be a father for that reason.
On the other hand, I became attached to my now step children from the first day I met them and I would move heaven and earth for them. But, they were already 9 and 14. Luckily, my wife also didn’t want more kids when we met. I’ll freely admit that it’s mostly caused by selfishness. Not financial selfishness, but with a teenager and a preteen, we never had to find babysitters when we wanted to go out and my wife and I could have plenty of alone time.
When I hung out with just my (step) children we could actually relate. In a lot of ways, I’m a big kid and they always joke when I say something that “this is reason number X that I will never make father of the year”.
This is one of those things that can't be "tested", so it is better to be sure before having kids. Personally I've decided against having kids, maybe I'll regret when I am 50, but for now I don't. Fortunately for me, there are enough humans in the planet already, so a few of us not having kids should only have positive impact, at least in the short term.
In my early thirties I was, let's say "very friendly with the ladies." I simply could not imagine being monogamous, and couldn't understand why anyone would want to be.
Then I met the woman who became my wife and I almost immediately didn't want any other woman. I don't mean that I came to accept that I wouldn't have any others, or anything like that. I mean that I simply didn't want anyone else. Other women became like abstract beings: attractive, but I was content to view them from afar. There was only one particular woman I actually wanted to make physical contact with.
I know that may sound kind of weird and new-agey, but it was literally like a switch flipping to another position, and almost 18 years later, it's never flipped back. My wife can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but my life would be lacking something critical without her, specifically, in it.
It is strange to me that so often questions along these lines are framed in selfish or hedonistic ways, as if all that mattered in life was one's own transient happiness.
The best way to have a meaningful and useful life is to create real structural improvements to the world. So for example working to reduce structural inequality is more useful than ordinary charity. Or creating useful services or products that improve people's lives.
Build relationships with people around you that might not be in your socio economic circle. Having a wide variety of friends definitely keeps life interesting.
If all else fails, move. Sometimes, just getting up and moving to a new city/country can enervate your life by exposing you to different patterns that your subconscious can explore.
Simplify your life. The less clutter/complication without, the less the same within
On a more concrete level you may experiment with doing following things daily: A bit of exercise, charity, meditation, reading and learning.
With charity I mean random act of kindness toward someone. Help someone, be it physically, emotionally, financially or in whatever way.
Re learning, to be expert in any new skill it takes 10k hours, so pick something you're passionate about and keep learning/practicing it daily for couple or so hours.
Experts experience different state of consciousness and unexplicable joy while doing the mastered activity.
Discovering fitness. Imagine someone who sits in their car on the way to work, then sits at work, then comes home and watches TV while sitting. That person is unhappy because they are sitting all day. Think of kids, they want to run around and play soccer, go to karate, do gymnastics... we're not so different. Hit the gym, hit the bike machine/trail, hit the weights, do a 5K, hit the climbing gym, stretch, do a handstand, do a butterfly kick, do an aerial
Live in a walk-able area if possible. Learn a foreign language. Eliminate vices
- Outsource chores or tasks I hate doing (like shopping and laundry).
- Optimize for free time where I have no obligations...I find that very pleasant.
- Say yes to things I've never tried before...if I hate it I'll say no the next time but I'll forever be able to tell people I tried X. This also makes conversations with strangers and acquaintances easier because I've tried a lot of stuff and can contribute to more conversations.
- Travel with friends. This can be hard to coordinate but is incredibly fun.
- Treat myself on occasion. I try to minimize the "stuff" I own but I just bought a nice pair of shoes that I've been looking at for a while and they make me happy every time I wear them.
- Only use social media for staying connected instead of entertainment. If I want to send a message to someone specific or look at pictures of my nephew, I'll log into Facebook. But as soon as I find myself scrolling through any sort of "feed" I pinch myself and log out...it's 95% bullshit I don't care about and 100% stuff I don't NEED to see right now anyway.
- pleasant: skip things you find unpleasant
In other words: resist outside pressure, experiment by yourself, take responsibility.
Taking responsibility could be seen as the first step. Once you're OK with the idea, it's easier to experiment out of the box, and to resist outside pressure that would force you into a boring, unpleasant life.
That's how I do it. I'm 46, live happy, in a happy couple for 7 yrs, nomading, currently in Malaysia, remote software engineer, working as little (<1wk/m) as possible to sustain this life. I own nothing and don't crave anything, I did nothing as they said, I learnt to not care about what they think, I'm responsible for my own fate. My priorities changed a lot after an ischemic stroke 14 years ago: life is short, too short to let others tell you how boring your own life should be.
- Don't take life too seriously
- Party. Enjoy the nightlife. Go to clubs and bars and meet people.
- Approach anybody you are interested in.
- Hobbies (preferably social ones; commit at least 5-10 hrs a week) - Don't overwork while young; the marginal gains aren't worth it unless you get really lucky. If your job/role comps well but is more than 60 hrs a week (and even that's pushing it), it's not worth it. Or maybe you do want to play the startup lottery; just fully appreciate that it is in fact a lottery and make your choice accordingly.
^Highly opinionated
Flexibility and keeping synchronisation points reasonably infrequent is far more important to me than reducing overall workload.
Candy TV/popular advice always tells you to try to be happy, happy, happy, which seems criminally misguided to me.
The list however, basically nails it. Some or all of those will add meaning to your life if you aim for them.
Personally, creation does it the best for me. There's a massive amount of things you can create, and an endless amount of skills you can learn/improve on. As long as you don't have delusions of becoming famous and treat it as a hobby, you can do it for life. Not so many fellow adults have as much free time as me though, so I'm not sure how viable this particular path would be for others.