This unfortunately falls into the same category in my mind as most advice: "you should ... X."
My mind is sick of hearing the things I should do. I know I should be better and fitter and less wasteful but... I'm tired.
My mind is sick of hearing the things I should do. I know I should be better and fitter and less wasteful but... I'm tired.
Stop pursuing the things you should do. Do less. Slave away on someone else's dream the last amount of hours possible to maintain a decent lifestyle. Until you reach a point where you find your innate creativity you thought you had lost in your teenage years shining in, driving you. That might require a massive lifestyle change.
But for the love of God stop listening and comparing to anyone. Working on your dream 1 hour a month is more than the vast majority of people do, and at the end of the day, you'll turn to dust like Albert Einstein did, whether you accomplished something or just played videogames all day.
I'm 42, don't have to work any more really and haven't been for some time now, and the innate creativity is not calling me at all. Perhaps I was always a bit dull, lol.
Anyway, people should be seriously prepared for the possibility that their dreams of pursuing projects "once have the time" were just an escape fantasy to help cope with suckiness of work. Lots of people who retire early return back to their previous line of work, because they can't really find meaning in anything, and structured and organized work within some company at least gives a little bit of it. The lesson from that is - don't burn your bridges.
Have you ever played as a child? Chance are you did. Are you able to do stuff you enjoy without anyone forcing you to? That's creativity.
My creativity is computer science related. For others it's painting, poetry, dancing or being a top fragger at Counter Strike. Just find out what is fun for you and maximize it. That's innate, and we don't lose it with age, we lose it because we become too busy to deal with bollocks imposed upon us.
And why should you maximise play? Because it's the point where drive, focus, fun and personal accomplishment are maximised. That's what I aim for.
"No one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn’t mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolit...
Also Brian Eno, urging people not to get a job: https://youtu.be/d-53tzx69fM
Decades of sitting down and staring at a screen in that office is bound to start to deep into someone's mental health at some point.
No amount of therapy, vanity spending, grindset mentality, family support, or PTO can fully fix the mental wound that a deeply unnatural lifestyle inflicts on a person. Those are all bandaids on a gaping bullet wound that is most likely permanent.
Tired of hearing these hackernews biohackers and their silly blog-inspired solutions to life satisfaction. It's time to wake up and realize that there is no way to achieve the type of satisfaction they are claiming they can achieve in the modern world.
Any benefit, like hearing about something I hadn't before, is overwhelmed by the negatives. If I instead spent all this time reading my unread books, I'd have a lot more discovery anyway, without any of the social media shame, pity, and jealousy.