9:00AM
Everything is starting to feel the same. Same conversations. Same people. Same foods. Same thing, different day. I mean, the weather is changing, but that’s about it.
I guess I’m in a funk right now. I can get so excited about a concept and then crash hard. I wonder how much of this schedule is getting to me—9AM, 1PM, 5PM—it almost locks me into doing something very short throughout the whole day, making it hard to go off and do something long and getting lost in it.
There are many things I’d love to do that don’t technically contribute anything to the world—go outside and shoot the basketball, kick the soccer ball around, clean the basement, go for a long run—and these are things I used to do, but for some reason I keep pressuring myself to do more and more for “the world.” Maybe it’s the financial pressure that’s getting to me. It has been, wow, maybe 8 years since I’ve had a strong paying steady job. I had a few here and there, but mostly have been scraping by with help from my parents. I feel fortunate to have had their help and also often quite embarrassed that by 34, I’m in such a position. Yes, I think the financial pressure is one of the most.
I also think there’s an impact pressure as well. I remember running workshops in Germany and helping about 40 people get better at dealing with emotional conflict. Sometimes I would still go to bed thinking that I hadn’t done enough, because those 40 people don’t have a large enough scale. Maybe this is the challenge of working in the tech industry and its incessant focus on scalability. I’m often trying to find the most scalable solution to help the most people possible with the least amount of input required. This drive for efficiency is driving me crazy.
I remember reading something where the guy said, “The opposite of love is not hate, but efficiency.” It really drove home for me (intellectually) that trying to make everything as efficient as possible can be very unloving towards others and towards ourselves. In a way, it robs us of our human nature—the fallibility of our existence, landing on solutions just as often as we fall into errors.
I think I keep focusing on how to help others that I start to lose myself. Somehow that their health is more important than mine. That their involvement and interest is more important than mine.
I want to take today, Sunday, to slow down, go outside, enjoy the weather, and try my best to do the things that I want to do, regardless of how much they will “help” others. I want to feel like a kid again—floating through the world, connecting with others, playing with nature, and just being.
9:10AM
