Time is such a fascinating concept. No species on the planet, besides human beings, understands the fact that time is always running out. Since the day you were born, the clock started ticking for you. And as a being of consciousness, you’ve had (and still have) the ability to choose what exactly to do with your time. And there’s this idea that you should always choose to do the productive thing. You should always be performing something ambitious or putting effort into something useful.
Heck, I’d reckon if sleep weren’t necessary to actually, ya know, survive, sleeping would be seen as a pointless or perhaps even harmful endeavor. Sleeping would hold the same level of stigma as shooting up dope, like it’s only something you do if you’re a stupid junkie. Forget rejuvenating your mind and body. Forget relieving stress. Just pull up your boot straps and git r’ dun! I mean already, people say “sleep is for the weak” and advocate forgoing rest in order to work, exercise, or otherwise “continue to hustle”. It’s this attitude of “don’t sleep unless you absolutely NEED to”, and even then, push yourself to stay awake for one more workout routine, for one more project complete. Just keep the hustle up and don’t stop! Sleep will only slow you down. Hustling and Bustling. That’s all we do, or are expected to do at least. We’re always in a rush, or very well pressured to be in a rush. We’re in such a hurry to get things done that we don’t take time to “stop and smell the roses” or take it easy once in a while, for that matter. We’re always jumping from one task to another, one obligation to the next. And never really take the time to...relax. And any time we try to spend in Leisure (the big “L” in L.A.Z.Y.), it is seen as a complete and utter waste of time. Being the only conscious beings in the world, who are aware of what time is and how it works, we end up pressuring ourselves to always make use of that time rather than watch it fritter away. A squirrel doesn’t choose to spend his day collecting nuts, he just does it out of pure instinct for survival. Likewise, a lion doesn’t choose to spend his day hunting gazelle, he just does it to satisfy his hunger. Animals don’t plan or schedule how they’ll use their time efficiently, they sort of just go with whatever hunch they’re feeling. But ya know what? Because of their lack of awareness of time, they don’t feel so pressured to get things done with that time, like we as humans do. They do what they want, when they want, without any sort of There’s admiration in that, quite frankly. -- doing what you want with your time, rather than chaining yourself to a freaking schedule and beating yourself up about being late. The lion feels no guilt or remorse by lying in the field all day. He just feels like he wants to sleep, so he does. Now if that lion were a person, we might call him out for “wasting his time”. Think about an employee who sleeps on the job. They're not only wasting their own time, but wasting company time as well, at least that’s how it’s seen in a corporate central society. Certainly, there’s a limited amount of time we have in life. None of us get out alive, so you might as well have fun while you’re here and appreciate every single moment. And for all intents and purposes, there’s no sense in wasting any of that limited time you have. Now of course, with that said, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be vigorous about your time, just conscious about it. In other words, you must consciously choose what to do with your time, even if you choose to do something rather unproductive. You must Procrastinate with Purpose. It’s your time, so do what you will with it. And that’s the key: doing what you *want*, as opposed to what you feel *required* to do. It’s more important to live a life of desire than one of obligation. Don’t indebt yourself to always be out on the hunt. Lie down and take a nap on the planes, like that lion, to put it in a metaphor. In more straightforward terms, don’t feel like you’re required to always hustle about to do something. Doing nothing has its merits. You wouldn’t believe that though, would you? Not in this work hard culture we’ve been raised in. The premise is set for us to believe that if you ain’t doing shit with your time, then you ain’t shit, period. In this profit-driven society, we’re constantly bombarded with messages to make every single minute of our lives productive. In fact, the mere act of existing doesn’t make you valuable in our culture. You must work hard, achieve some sort of grand feat, or otherwise make big moves in order to amount to anything worthwhile in the eyes of society. But I believe, there’s value in a person just being a person, even if they so happen to choose to lie on the couch all day, even if they do nothing. Today we’re going to take a look at how to make the best of your time in life, even if that means quote on quote “wasting” it. And without further ado, let’s dive...right into it! We’re all completely wasted! Every second of our lives is spent towards some means of productivity, whether that’s grinding 8 hours on the daily at your day job, cleaning up and doing chores at home, or paying bills, there’s always something we’re doing to make use of our time. Life becomes an eternal to-do list. Once one thing is checked off, about three or four more tasks take its place. It’s a never-ending call of duty. And that’s the false notion I really want to address here today: that we must consistently MAKE USE OF our time. It’s okay to have a small to-do list. It’s okay to be lazy ,contrary to popular belief. Making use of your time means performing noteworthy achievements or making progress towards said achievements. While there are kudos for doing that, to a certain extent. I mean it is good to level up and earn a praiseworthy accomplishment or two once in a while. But if you’re constantly doing that, if you’re always no matter what being productive, despite how physically tired or emotionally drained you may feel, well that means you’re never taking time to unwind and rejuvenate that energy loss. And if you don’t take time to unwind, then you’re tight and on-edge. You’re mentally unhinged and emotionally unstable. You deplete yourself of energy and wind up, well, pretty damn wasted. In attempts not to waste time, you end up wasting yourself. I mean let’s face it, just like there is a limited amount of time we all have, there’s also a limited amount of stamina we have too. Doesn’t matter how much or how long you “push” yourself, at some point or another, you are going to hit fatigue. Of course, the message of encouragement will be to “just suck it up”, to keep moving, and never give up. Giving into the pressure to call it quits makes you weak. Look, man, taking a break doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you’re respecting your own mind, body, and spirit. Conversely, if you quit that makes you strong. It takes strength to recognize your limits and know when it’s time to take it easy and stop your achievement streak for now. It’s actually rather weak to ignore all the signs in your mind and body to stop, just to “prove thyself” or whatever. Besides, you can always continue your goal later. You can finish up your achievement...eventually. Slow n’ steady wins the race. If you try to rush to the finish line in one go, you’ll exhaust yourself before even getting there. Cut the go-getter and tough guy mantra and instead BE HONEST with yourself. After all, telling the truth is the one thing you should NOT procrastinate on. You’re lying to yourself about how much you can handle. It’s more stoic and classy to say “okay enough is enough here. I’m done.” than to barbarically insist like an irrational caveman: “CROGG NO HURT! CROGG GO ON! Calm you tits, dude. Relax. Seriously. Be lazy one in a while. You need it. Laziness is evolution. Laziness is smart. Laziness is nature’s “energy-saving mode.” It’s pretty goddamn dumb to continue working, to continue trying, to continue busting your freaking ass when your body is collapsing, your heart is torn, and your mind is breaking down. I mean you want to talk about a junkie. You ever think that maybe, just maybe you’re addicted to work and overachieving. Like a junkie, you seek the “high” of earning rewards or approval from all your try hard efforts and wind up doing yourself more harm than good. Sure, it may feel good to get more done than you had anticipated, but at the end of the day, you’re screwing yourself over by refusing to give yourself enough rest. By skipping rest in order to work all the time, you’ll age faster, lose your physical strength and coordination more quickly, and feel your mental ability decline much sooner than if you actually took the time to relax and recover when you need to. Sure, there’s a big hype to always perform well and be on the ball, so you go ahead and force yourself to “push beyond the limit.”Meanwhile you’re destroying yourself in doing so. As you “push through the pain”, you become a ticking time bomb and it’s only a matter of *time* before you explode. What’s more is you keep adding fire to that fuse; you keep adding stressors to your life by continually putting more on your plate than you can eat. You’re overstuffing your face with too much junk. Yes, eating is healthy. Just like achieving goals is necessary. But too much of it is no bueno. It’s NOT good! You should aim for a life of balance. To have leisure mixed with accomplishment. The “work/life”balance , if you will. The ProcrastiN8r never does TOO much of anything and always does “Just enough”. Strive to do “just enough”. That is the key to balance. And if there’s one principle to live by, it’s “balance.” But that could be a whole other topic for a whole other day. We’ll say that’s “just enough” for now and get back to it eventually. For now though, let’s get back to this whole little diddly about time. There’s no down time. We’re constantly on the grind, always exerting effort towards *some* task or another, non-stop persisting to get more things done. We never really settle down or ease up. Weekends are a laughable excuse for a so-called “break”. It simply isn’t enough time to recuperate after a long 40+ week of working. We have chores to do, groceries to shop for, bills to pay. There’s really hardly any time at all to just chill. We have to many obligations to attend to to allow ourselves to fully and completely embrace our Leisure. Even recreation is something we don’t permit to restore our energy. The time we spend on hobbies is time spent either trying to improve our skill, learning new techniques, or otherwise achieving some sort of goal. We even use recreational time itself to be proactive. You don’t play guitar simply to enjoy playing music, but to practice scales or chords. You don’t go out for a jog just to enjoy the outdoors and relish in the feeling of breathing but to get a good cardio work out. You don’t cook to appreciate the tastes and smells of food, but to prepare a meal for your guests. You get the gists. In doing things we enjoy, we fail to make that time enjoyable. We turn what should be a Leisure into productive work. We must focus on finding pleasure in the things we do, allowing our hobbies to relax us, rather than become just another pressure in life for us to get better at. Don’t pressure yourself, man. Just enjoy what you do, without any sort of ulterior motive (like improving skill, completing a project, winning a game, etc.). Play to have fun, not to win. Value satisfaction over victory. Look at the Dude, he bowls not to win or get a strike. He bowls because he likes it. He revels in the joy he gets from bowling. And that’s it. He abides and does his own thing, regardless of how productive it is or isn’t. He does the thing just to enjoy it. And that’s how we have to aim to spend our recreational time. Vacation, too, becomes not a time to relax and take it easy, but an opportunity to make the best of it and take advantage of all the excursions at the place you choose to travel to. We build ourselves a hard itinerary to follow -- scuba diving in the morning, jet skiing in the afternoon, fireworks in the evening, and clubbing late at night. Everything on vacation is scheduled and pre-planned. We then pressure ourselves to fulfill said schedule of activities we had planned, even if we feel too tired to do it. We wind up coming back home after a week or two and need a vacation after our vacation. You know the feeling. You come home from your tour in Europe or trip to the beach or hike out in the Grand Canyon or wherever your vacation destination was and you just feel so drained. We’re all waste, completely burnt out. We have no energy. And the time we could use to revitalize that energy is instead used to deplete it even further. We’re running on empty and barely getting by. The time you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted time. Giving yourself ample amount of time to not put yourself under any obligation or pressure yourself to achieve a certain goal and instead just waste that time doing nothing allows you to really revive yourself and feel fresh. You’ll for once in a very long time, feel rested, feel at peace, feel happy. Give yourself that much needed break. And when I say break, I mean it. Don’t constantly be forcing yourself to do things you won’t actually enjoy just because you don’t want to waste your time. Embrace your Leisure every once in a while. Fully and completely relax. Fully and completely be at rest. It’s much better to waste time than it is to waste your enjoyment of life. Take it easy, N8
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