Category: Personal

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I Should Have Easy Days from Time to Time

I’ve obviously discussed the importance of not getting burnt out, and easing off the throttle when I’m feeling worn out.

But a proactive approach might be considerably more effective.

I think that sometimes (as much as every week or two), I should have a day where I have very little planned and don’t feel the need to be super productive. I can just do whatever I feel like doing.

I have a tendency to load up my to-do list if it looks like the day is going to be pretty easy. I want to capture as much productivity as I can every single day.

But if I do that every day… It just sort of feels mechanical. Like I’m a machine whose only purpose is productivity, and like I need to fill all of my time.

Neither things are true.

The biggest thing is that I don’t ever want to feel like I’m lacking in time. I want it to always feel like a plentiful resource.

I think when I have a day where I have almost nothing planned and can just do whatever I want, it sort of resets that sense in my mind that time is scarce.

Which, in turn, I suspect greatly reduces anxiety among other things.

So today wasn’t too difficult. I’ll get some house and yard things done anyway, but they don’t sound bad at all so I’ll still have fun.

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What are we Escaping From?

I came to the conclusion today that most entertainment we consume is actually just a form of escapism. We’re no longer watching artistic films or reading deep novels to try to gleam some deeper understanding of life or truly improve ourselves and our lives.

We’re just trying to escape.

From what, exactly? That’s the question!

I think most of the time it’s a feeling. It’s anxiety, stress, worry, or just an unsettling feeling of meaninglessness.

And it might work for a bit, but doesn’t do anything long term to actually resolve the underlying issues.

And I just feel like it’s kind of sad when you take a step back. We’re escaping from our lives when we could be living them. We could be making them better or working on something meaningful in our own lives. But instead, on average, supposedly people spend something like 8 hours per day on entertainment. Most of which, it seems to me, is pretty much meaningless.

That is, of course, not to say that all entertainment is bad or even that meaningless entertainment should never be consumed.

But I do think they need to be greatly limited in the modern context.

We live in a time period when people are totally disconnected from the output of their work. They don’t feel their jobs have meaning.

Add on to that the fact that most people have no real hobbies, and you end with a culture that really lacks any meaning.

And of course, this compounds on itself. You feel anxious about the lack of purpose, you seek to quiet that part of your mind, you scroll social media or throw on Netflix, you don’t connect with others or work on your hobby. The cycle continues.

I’m not sure what to do about this other than try to greatly limit my consumption of media, particularly empty, meaningless media and entertainment.

I can’t control the culture or other people but I can at least try to limit my own consumption.

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I Need to Write About Anything I’m Thinking About Consistently

I realized today that there are tons of things just sort of… Swirling around in my mind at any given time, and it feels a bit like I’m putting in a monumental effort to simply keep them in a sort of queue.

I think there is a cost associated with any effort of that nature, and over time, it really starts to bog down my brain.

I’m sure I’ve read about the legitimacy of such a thought and, from what I understand, it is actually valid.

The solution?

For anything that has popped up in my head or that I feel like I’m trying to hold on to: write about it! Here.

I’ll come back to it.

The moment I write about it, a bit of a weight is lifted. I no longer need to remember it. Obviously, for some things, they need to “cook” for a bit and those are going to stay in my head for a while.

But for other things, I just need to dedicate some actual time to sit and write about it, to put in the thought required to resolve it, and then either act on it if applicable or forget about it.

And that’s it.

It makes no sense to be dragging all sorts of mental baggage around with me all the time, scattering my attention, focus, and brainpower.

I think it’s important to come to this blog almost every day and write about, really, whatever is on my mind.

Things that are seeking some kind of resolution will get there faster, things that require action will come to the surface and become actionable, and things that I’m ruminating on will be given enough thought to resolve and then forget.

Like in many areas of my life, I think my threshold for quality is too high. I have this idea that I shouldn’t do something at all unless it’s great.

But this blog is almost entirely for me. I don’t need every post to be incredible. Sometimes it’s just about writing it.

And I’m arguing now that, for many things, the main value is in writing it and getting it out of my head.

So going forward, I want to be way more open to just word vomit and spilling out my brain into blog posts with no specific purpose.

The quality might go down but the clarity of my thinking is likely to improve. And that’s the important thing.

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But I Actually Did It

For the last handful of years, I’ve had a sort of mantra that I keep coming back to, which is basically, “Yeah, anyone can do it. But I actually did.”

I had been planning to write a blog post about this for some time, and then today, I just so happened to read the blog post where I first heard those words.

It was in my own blog. But it wasn’t me who said them. It was a comment from my good friend David, and he said those words exactly.

I don’t think I appreciated them fully at the time, but over the years they came to mean more and more to me.

You see, my early writings in this blog reflected my actual mindset at the time which had a sort of obsession of being a “top performer” or just really talented or smart. While not all my posts were public, it seems like every few months I’d write a post scolding myself for not doing better or questioning whether I was even that talented.

I used to find myself regularly pursuing extremely ambitious goals or projects and then getting frustrated when I didn’t immediately excel at them. I was dismissive of anything that I saw as requiring lots of time but not elite, innate abilities or talent.

But you know what I’ve come to realize? That’s complete nonsense.

One of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life is learn a foreign language (Spanish) and actually reach a high level of proficiency in it.

But here’s the thing about learning a language… Anyone can do it. It takes a lot of time and energy, but it doesn’t require any special skills or intelligence. You just have to put in the time.

Anyone could do it. But I actually did. And in Robert Frost’s famous words, “and that has made all the difference.”

As David pointed out eight years ago, the fact that anyone could do something is irrelevant. It still takes hard work and sustained effort to do many things, and they are still not only worthwhile, but even impressive.

So since then I’ve really tried to apply that to my life, and it’s been freeing. I don’t need to be the best at anything innately or to focus on activities that most people could never do. If it’s worthwhile to do, I should do it.

I’ve been having lots of fun getting more serious about guitar playing lately, and I think this mindset shift is an important piece of that.

I don’t think I’m a naturally gifted musician or guitar player, but it doesn’t matter. Most people could master an instrument if they were to put in the hours. But it’s still extremely worthwhile to do so. The fact that most people could doesn’t cheapen it at all.

And, lest I get carried away here, it’s also worth noting that things can be worthwhile and great even if everyone not only could but actually does do them. Even if they are extremely easy. Not everything needs to be a demonstration of ability or, more pointedly: proof that you are better than others. Things can be enjoyable and worthwhile on their own merit.

With that out of the way, I want to proceed to the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning.

There is no difference between those who could do something and don’t, and those who can’t do it.

The idea that you “could” do something if you wanted to is a mirage. It’s so irrelevant that it’s meaningless.

You either do something or you don’t. Nobody cares whether you’re capable of something and you shouldn’t either.

If your self-esteem is based on perceived but untested competence and ability, you’re doomed to never try at anything for fear of breaking the illusion of competence.

I’ve seen how this plays out with myself and lots of others. It’s almost always the same.

These people typically don’t want to try anything new. If they do, they give up quickly when they realize they aren’t instantly gifted at it.

They fear failure more than anything because it means they aren’t what they believed themselves to be.

And what’s really interesting that over time, their efforts and failures (or lack thereof) are compounded.

Most people who succeed at a high level were willing to try lots of things and, indeed, fail at lots of things. Their self-esteem was never tied up in their “innate ability”.

This gave them experience which, over time, gave them actual competence.

I think it’s the same reason that you so often see top performers from high school flame out in college or after and end up in safe but boring jobs, never really reaching their potential.

It’s a known phenomenon that the vast majority of top performers in adulthood actually didn’t excel as children. In fact, a Science study determined that only 10% of top performers as children end up as top performers as adults.

And I think this is a big part of why that is. When you’re a top performer as a child, you start to believe that you are successful because you are actually in some way better than others. You then close yourself off to any opportunity to expose that as untrue. This prevents you from performing at an elite level later in life.

But I reiterate: it doesn’t matter if you can do something. I only matters if you actually do it.

Anyone could learn Spanish, but I actually did it, and it was extremely worthwhile to me. Now I’m even learning French, something anyone could do.

I’m running a business in an industry with low barriers to entry and I’m not doing anything particularly original. In theory, most people could get into this. But I actually did it, and it’s enabled a life for me that’s very worthwhile.

And again, I’m really putting a lot of effort into guitar and music again, even though I don’t think I have any particular natural ability. And it’s already greatly enriched my life. I’m kicking myself for spending so little time on it for a long time, in part because I didn’t feel like I was naturally gifted.

How silly.

I think that, without this important mindset shift, I would have eventually found myself an old man with no accomplishments or abilities, bitterly confident in my own intelligence and talent with absolutely nothing to show for it.

I feel that I’m on a much better path now. One where I can just enjoy things and set goals that are attainable and have have rewarding experiences that I never would have been able to before.

It’s a shame we can’t go back in time and talk to our younger selves. I’d love to have the opportunity to set myself straight years ago.

I can’t do that, but the next best time is to do it now!

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I Have Tons of Time to Do What I Want – It’s All Relative Though

I often find myself lamenting that I don’t have more time for my hobbies or other non-work activities. Ironically, I find myself working harder and more often in an attempt to get myself to a financial place where I no longer need to work as much and have more time for hobbies.

It’s all relative, though.

To someone working two full-time jobs (or any parent), 15 minutes in a day is lots of free time.

The amount of free time I have is probably in the top 1% of employed people my age. And in addition to having the time at all, I also have an incredible amount of flexibility with it so that I can really make the most of it.

And that’s all amazing.

But it’s just funny how quickly we take for granted… Literally anything good.

I’ve found myself more and more envisioning a future where AI disrupts my industry to such an extent that I no longer have a livable income from my business. And I’ve realized just how much I take for granted.

And this is one of those things, specifically. Yes, I could have more free time. But like… Not that much more. And it’s not like having a little extra free time is going to drastically change my life.

I think I just need to be more efficient with the time I do have, and consider cutting some things out if I don’t feel like they are providing value to me.

So this is just a note to myself to be thankful for these things. Whether or not they last forever, they are still objectively good.

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I Want to Play More Guitar and Generally Shift my Time Focus

I’m just about done with my 3 week Asia trip, and I feel like my perspectives and priorities have changed a bit.

Most of the most rewarding experiences I had involved playing guitar or performing music (jamming with musicians in Kyoto, playing a guitar at a bar near Nagano, Karaoke in Tokyo and Taipei, playing Cajon in Taipei at open mic night). It made me realize I’d really like to invest lots of time into improving. I’d like to get really good.

And I’ve done just fine maintaining my business with an average of fewer than 2 hours per day spent on it. Which means I should have an incredible amount of free time on my hands.

I need to focus on practice and learning vs. just “being good”, because I think that will make it more fun and ultimately lead to better results.

I’m told that 3 hours per day is probably the most you should ever play and it will yield the best results. I don’t need to play that much every day but I might as well shoot for close to it. Maybe even just try it for a while and see how things change.

I might even buy a new acoustic guitar that’s a little more standard to play and go from there. My current ones are unusual.

I’ll focus on fundamentals and hopefully also start playing with people again. I think that would be fun. Maybe do open mic nights.

But I’d say that overall, I’ve had a bit of a mindset shift on how I spend my time. I got the impression while traveling that in these places there is far less of a focus on money and productivity, which is great. I’m realizing more and more that our system in the US is just sort of sick, and much of it has been imposed upon us by billionaires trying to create a culture of wage slaves to enrich themselves.

And I want no part of it.

Obviously, I have to plan for my future. And my job has only improved over time and paid me more, and I’m incredibly thankful for it.

But I need to realize that it’s a means to an end, and that I need to take a step back and really be honest about how I’m spending my time with it. I need to really focus on making it as efficient as possible and spend as little of my own time on it as possible so that it doesn’t interfere too much with the rest of my life.

And I also just need to review how I’m actually spending my time. I think I’m still wasting far too much time on silly activities like entertainment. I’m not being intentional enough.

Part of the problem is that I lack the energy to work on things that benefit me all the time. I may need to improve my sleep for that or figure out other things.

But I should also change how I view some of my activities. I should have times when I’m playing guitar just for fun and I don’t need to focus on learning or improvement. It can be low-energy and restorative. Just play songs I know if I’m lacking in energy.

Anyway, that’s what I hope to do going forward and I’m thankful for this trip that it helped me see that. Hopefully I won’t just slide backwards going forward.

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Social Media and Phone Addiction is Devastating

I was taking the train from Taipei to the airport, and at one point I looked around at everyone else on the train and literally every single person – probably 100 within eye shot – was on their phone. Just glued to it.

They weren’t talking on their phone or anything, and from what I could tell, nobody was even doing anything productive. They were all just scrolling through mindless content.

And it made me realize just how completely devastating this is.

I feel like the “elites” have been doing everything they can to control people. Historically, that was done predominantly through vices like drugs and alcohol. One could argue that’s also the primary purpose of sports viewing.

But I would argue this is far more effective.

No longer are people ever alone with their thoughts. They have no time to do things with their lives or think through their own problems because every free moment is spent just staring at a screen and consuming mindless content.

It’s the most effective possible way to control people.

I think it’s probably far worse for people than anyone realizes.

When you don’t sleep properly, your body can’t recover from stress properly. Your brain doesn’t function right. You struggle to learn things or even form proper memories.

But what if you’re never bored? What if you’re never alone with your thoughts?

I believe that’s when you slip into the Default Mode Network (or perhaps I have it backwards).

What if this state is just as important as sleep? How are people supposed to take a step back and look at their life and make improvements if they never slip into that state?

I’m certainly not immune to the allure of doomscrolling. I’ve put a lot of effort into stopping and also eliminating most options for even doing it, but I do still find ways from time to time.

And I think that’s going to have to stop. It just made me to sad seeing so many people, not saying a word to each other. Just numbing themselves.

I think it’s so easy to just say it’s harmless, but I’m feeling more confident every day that it’s not true.

I think the people in charge absolutely know it’s not harmless and are trying to control the narrative so people don’t realize it is.

We know that much of this is true: I know at one point some private correspondence from Facebook came out proving that Mark Zuckerberg knew how harmful his products were to people and they just sort of ignored it.

I can’t control what other people do and I’m certainly not judging anyone. But I do control myself, and I think I need to make the decision to basically block all possible forms of mindless content consumption and make sure I never go back to it.

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On Caffeine and Deep Sleep

I’ve been using my Oura ring for something like a month now, and I think it will actually prove to be a game changer.

It didn’t take me long to realize that when I wake up still feeling tired and then feel unmotivated all day, it’s because I didn’t get very much deep sleep.

And every time I wake up feeling great and have tons of energy, it’s because I got lots of deep sleep.

Now, it’s not an EKG and its determination of sleep cycles is not entirely accurate. But it’s not bad either. And it seems to track very well with how I’m feeling.

This is the kind of information I’ve historically lacked. It feels a little bit like the missing piece of the puzzle.

I’m still experimenting and I haven’t gotten anything settled yet. But at the moment, it’s really looking like any amount of caffeine throws off my deep sleep completely.

Even a single green tea in the morning or a root beer in the afternoon is enough to reduce my deep sleep to an hour and fifteen minutes (on a good night) to thirty minutes or less.

I drank a bit yesterday and lately have been thinking that alcohol totally ruins my deep sleep, but apparently that’s not true. I got plenty last night. And I haven’t had caffeine in like 5 days.

I’ll keep going caffeine free for at least a few more days, and then I’ll test my theory by having one green tea in the morning. If it messes up my deep sleep, I’ll know that’s what happened.

I’m not getting my hopes up because I’ve been so wrong about many of these things before. But this one so far seems very plausible.

I’m also continuing to improve my nose breathing and that could also be helping with my sleep. Hard to say.

I’ll report back if I have any more evidence to support or refute my theory.

Oh, and just so I have them written down: if it’s not caffeine, there’s also some evidence that eating less than 2 hours before bed could be a real problem, or that screen use is a problem.

Although I did both right before bed last night and it was fine.

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It’s Burnout… And Basically Everything Else

I’m only maybe 5 days into relaxing a bit since developing my theory that I’m essentially just burnt out and I’m feeling… Great.

I haven’t been super productive, though I have spent lots of time on the important things I need to do in my business and also have done tons of reading and playing guitar (which I’m enjoying much more).

Overall, I’m just feeling like how I should be feeling, I think. It’s great.

Obviously I don’t automatically feel great, but the floor is way higher, I enjoy things more, the brain fog is pretty much gone, and I have way more energy.

I randomly decided to go on a run today and my pace was for about an 8:38 mile, vs my most recent runs previously of 9:22 or more. And I felt good doing it. I felt light.

And really all I’ve done is relax a bit more and have some flexibility in what I get done.

Nothing else major has changed.

So I think really, this is it.

What’s funny is that the first post I randomly read today before writing this was one from March in which I specifically determine that I think I’m burnt out. I had forgotten about that entirely. It’s funny how things work out.

I eventually dismissed that idea at the time, because I realized my CPAP settings were not good and were definitely hurting me.

Which is probably true. And would make them the biggest contributor to my burnout.

You see, I think basically everything I’ve brought up here as an idea has contributed in one way or another to the burnout. Most of them affect how I sleep, rest, or otherwise recover. That’s why my sleep apnea has had a massive impact, and why when I was most burnt-out, I felt most like I did before it was treated.

So over time, I’ve slowly fixed and optimized so many parts of my life and I think those will continue to serve me well. And I might not have ever figured them out if I didn’t feel bad to start.

But now I feel like I can solve the overarching problem while reaping the benefits of everything else I learned.

I think that basically, I need to just pay attention to how I’m feeling. If I’m getting really stressed, I can’t just use that stress to power through for days at a time. I need to occasionally back off the workload and take some time to recover.

I may also need to figure something else out for my mornings. If I’m waking up past 8, going on a walk, studying, and reading for a while, then breakfast, THEN trying to do all of my important work tasks for the day AND workout all before lunch… It just won’t work.

So maybe I’ll plan to do emails and then just the ONE important work thing and work out, and then lunch. And then do the other work things afterwards.

And if things get crazy, I need to be open to working out after work.

But the important thing is to just monitor how I’m feeling and make adjustments as needed. I don’t want to get burnt out again. It’s not a good feeling.

I’m mostly just excited that I seem to have finally figured it out. It’s very encouraging, and I’m far more optimistic for the future now.

I think at my lowest point, I really started to give up hope that things would improve. I was feeling pretty hopeless.

But now it’s back! And I’m excited for the future again.