I'm DONE. Good bye. This is the LAST blog post ever. Thank you!

This is it. I’m writing my last blog post. I am done. Retired. Sayonara. Bon voyage. See ya never.

Thank you all for the support along the way.

It’s been real and it’s been nice, but it hasn’t been real nice.

I'm too lazy to write any more. As always, stay classy and take real easy.

N8
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What?

Still here?

I told you:

I'm done writing. No more content. That’s it.

Capeesh? Jeez...

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Damnit! You are persistent. I will give you that.

But STOP SCROLLING. Because there’s literally no more to read.

I'm tellin ya!

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Really? Still here?

Again?

What do I have to tell you?

Scram, kid!. Get outta here!


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April Fool's! 

Oh...it's May?

Well I'm always late to the party. Fashionably late of course. TROLOLOLOLO!

Anyway, I plan on continuing to create content. Don’t worry. But..

The mental attitude of “being done” (perpetually) is what it took to write this.

Of course I normally procrastinate and put off writing this until the last minute, but I always get shit done!

I honestly didn’t have the motivation to write this article today at all, though, beyond just waiting ‘til the last minute. Maybe I’m partly burnt out, maybe I’m just too emotionally charged after seeing End Game, but for whatever reason, I just didn’t want to write this blog today. Like not in the least bit.

But I did. I got through it. I did it.

And how did I pull that off? How did I gain the inspiration and energy to write an entire new blog article?

By telling myself that this was the very last one I was going to write. Ever.

And even playing up on that imagination a little bit.

That gave a great feeling of “relief” and actually made me roll right through this without even thinking about it.

See, when we say “oh I’m just going to have to do this again” next week or tomorrow or at some point, whenever,  we don’t give our minds the rest they need. We create a mental prison of eternal work, and that’s just no good. That’s a hardworking mindset, not a lazy one.

We create the “pressure of Eternity”, making us feel like this (whatever work load or project you have) isn’t ever going to end -- that you’re just going to have to do it again, over and over. It's like singing that ole Lamb Chop song to yourself.




We look at the next thing before we’re done the first thing in front of it and see no end to it.

It has to be done (your goals) one step at a time. It’s one thing to have direction, it’s another to try to finish the whole race in one step.

Staring at the screen, wasting time, I realized it’s not that I didn’t want to write today’s blog, it’s that I didn’t want to write all the blogs I would write ever.

Instead of focusing on the task at hand TODAY, I was mentally preparing myself to do every single blog I’d ever write IN THE FUTURE. This was where my “writer’s block” came in. I became so bogged down by the sheer amount of potential blogs that I wasn’t actually focusing on this one specifically.

I was gauging my energy and willpower against the plethora of blogs I’ll write in the future…instead of just this one simple article I have to write today.

I put myself up to do more than I actually had to do, in my head. Luckily, I caught myself in this hardworking mode of thinking, took a deep breath, relaxed, and put a stop to it.

I decided to approach this with the attitude “I’’ll be done forever after this.” That gave me the motivation I needed to do the thing.

By giving myself a little “ta da” finale victory, I was able to strive through writing this little blurb here.

We live in a "work hard" mantra society that forces us to believe that there is no such thing as "DONE".  (and let me tell you, old habits die hard)

It's one project after another. Done is a fleeting state and unobtainable, as we are taught. You are not done until you die and/or retire. "Work 'til you die" or are at least physically unable to, basically.

Well, I'll tell you what, we didn't always hold this ridiculous belief that "DONE" is not an option.

Think about summer time when you were in school as a kid….




Summer time was the best time as a kid!


Over 90 days of swimming, camping, roller skating, making s’mores, or even playing video games in the AC when I didn’t feel like actually going outside

But before the 3 month long vacation, there was that week or two in school where I entered this same “I’m done” attitude that I took while writing this blog.

I remember sitting in the hot classroom, looking out the window, daydreaming about Slip n’ Slides and playing tag.

I would get home, hop on the Playstation for a few hours, then... face the inevitable monster -- my homework. I hesitated, procrastinated, for quite a bit. I even considered not doing it at all. But then I was like:

“Fuck it. It’s the last week before summer. I’ll just get it done. I won’t have to worry about this shit for a while after that.”

Almost there. Just this one little thing.

Of course, perhaps the word “fuck” and “shit” was not in my childhood dictionary, but you get the point.

It was easy to pull through the last stretch because there was that big reward at the end -- summer break. I managed to do my homework because I was almost done with any sort of school work for the rest of the year anyway. I could push through the final stretch. It's like sprinting full speed the last few yards in a marathon race. No matter how tired the runner may be, they've already made it so far and might as well give it all they got as they cross the finish line.

(Of course summer school is a different story but I want to focus on the mental attitude present in that moment)

Summer meant one word: FREEDOM!



It meant I didn’t have to wake up early. I could sleep to noon.

It meant I didn’t have to sit in a classroom (and be brainwashed), and could lay on the couch.

It meant I didn’t have to hear the teacher yell at me for falling asleep.

It meant I didn’t have to do homework. I could go outside and play tag with my friends or trade Pokemon with them or just stay inside and try to beat Gex or Final Fantasy VII.

There were no obligations. Only possibilities.

I didn’t even think about school during the period of those few months.

(Well other than those “summer readings” we had to do.

Goddamn teachers who assign summer readings. Like c’mon we know you already read this and it definitely wasn’t during the summer, but you gonna make us read it during the summer while you enjoy all the free time. Who ya tryin’ to play?)

Even though we’re not kids any more, and most of us aren’t teachers who get the entire summer off, we should still give ourselves a “summer break”.

I don’t mean literally take off the whole summer, though that would be nice and you should do that if possible; also it’s my goal to create a life where I’m living a permanent summer vacation.

What I mean is we should strive to give ourselves the mental relief as an adult that summer break gave us as a kid.

You need to find something that you enjoy and take the time to well, enjoy it.

I don’t mean like taking the weekend to do something in the way you may hit up the club or hit up Overwatch with your buddies on a Friday evening after a 9 to 5 job.

I mean fully engulfing yourself in the activity you enjoy to the point where you don’t even think about your work duty or obligations, not just distract yourself for a bit.

There's a difference between finding enjoyment and finding distractions.

As a kid, heck you never put a time stamp on it. At least I didn’t

As a kid, I literally did NOT keep track of what the date was, yet alone what the day of the week it was.

I wasn’t staring at the clock on the wall in a classroom, and was before cell phones too, so literally there were two times during the day: “light and dark”

I didn’t think about what sort of assignments I would get in the next grade. I didn’t worry about how hard the homework would be or how confusing math would be in the upcoming year. I was even back then: a procrastinator at heart.

School wasn’t something I thought or cared about during the summer. The summer was...the summer!

That’s it. Enjoyment in it’s purest form. Nothing else mattered except having fun. That’s what you want to achieve -- that level of enjoyment -- when you take a break or vacation from your work.

I wasn't distracting myself from school. I was enjoying summer

Like the only reason I knew summer was even ending, coming to a close, was because my parents would nag “you’re going back to school soon”, followed by a trip to buy school supplies and new fitting clothes for my uniform (yes I went to prison *ahem* um, Catholic school). I was like “oh snap, I guess it’s August. Aw man.”

I mean yeah, it went by fast but I was actually living those moments, not just worrying about what the future would hold.


Often times when we get down to do an assignment, we think more about what else needs to get done, rather than what we are actually doing

That feeling of “Almost done” (any sort of obligation) makes things easy and it’s imperative to achieve that with every move you make. It allows you to focus on what you are actually doing, rather than what is yet to come, just as you don't think about next year's classes right before "School's Out" before summer or even during summer for that matter.

Plus, the more you appreciate the little goals you achieve, the better you’ll feel about yourself and your ability to achieve things, so take time to relax and celebrate, even if for a few minutes.

As you’re working, look forward to a positive future, where you get to relax and do what you enjoy, rather than think about the other things on your to do list or how often you’ll have to repeat the specific task you’re currently working on.

Then...give yourself a break, give yourself freedom. Do nothing. Immerse deeply in lazy relaxation to the point where any “have tos” or obligations are far gone from your mind, just like you did as a (lazy) kid during the summer.

Live in the moment of enjoyment, not in the future of obligations.

Procrastinate moving on to the next assignment and move at your own pace. Slow n’ steady. Make summer all year long.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have my Switch waiting for me on the couch.


Take it easy,

N8
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