I went out for coffee with someone a few days back and was explaining to them my rather obscure work situation and how I have quite a significant amount of freedom and free time as a result of it and that I need to find things to do to fill the time I create. She said she’d love to have that much free time so I asked her what she would do. “Sleep”. Fair enough. Initially I guess I tried to do that and went from having a terrible sleep pattern to actually being a good sleeper (ten points me). But then I dug and asked “Come on, you can do anything, what would you do?”. She didn’t know. And I think most people don’t know either. People want free time but have no idea how to use it.
She eventually responded with something along the lines of “Sounds annoying having to fill all the time”.
And fuck, a year or two ago I would have agreed emphatically.
But not anymore.
Now I wake up and I’m genuinely excited at the fact that I have so much time. I can fill it however I like.
This morning I stayed in bed watching old Big Bang Theory (the first few seasons are a delight) until 12, then had a boujee salad, then hopped on a motorbike and hung out at a bouldering place in Bangkok. I climbed for a few hours, then chilled out with a unusually tasty iced latte and read more of The Count of Monte Cristo, which frankly, has been consuming way too much of my reading time though it is a fucking excellent book. Then work. A few hours of setting up some automations and sending some emails. Classic Max day. Now I’m sat watching a sunset while writing. I mean, come on. What a day. And it’s not even late here! I have so much time to do so many things! Divine! Who knows what I’ll do?
But then again I can understand why people don’t know what to do with their time. When you have this much freedom it can initially be overwhelming. Even my first post “The Weight of Time” was about my difficulties with it.
I’ve wasted a lot of time over the past few years in an occasionally depressed state over the fact I had so much time and no clue how to fill it. I would say that I tried lots of things but that would be categorically untrue. In fact, I spent most of the time doing unnecessary low value work. Or lounging around for periods that surpassed the point of relaxation and descended into uncomfortable stressed stillness. Oh and gaming. I spent a stupid amount of time gaming and while I can now stomp most people at Overwatch or COD, I would like to have used that time better.
It’s taken me a long time but I’m [fingers crossed] over that hump now.
So how the hell did I do it?
Well, dear reader, I have given this a lot of thought so indulge my erratic writing style below as I try to explain.
Initially I started asking myself questions like “what would your day to day look like if you had £100million in the bank?” or “Imagine your ideal day, what happens in it?”. The questions took me to a point, though not very far… From extended sessions asking myself these questions all I recognised is that I wanted to wake up to almond croissants, coffee, and fresh orange juice. I was probably just hungry. But, assuming I wasn’t just hungry, that was breakfast covered. Now I just had to figure out literally everything else.
“Okay, so fuck the questions”, I thought. Let’s approach this from another angle. Maybe you really do know what you want to do with your time, maybe somewhere in your head is this whole load of stuff that you want to do but your desire to do these things has atrophied through years of hard and lonely work. Hmm. Interesting. So I started to do this thing called “dreamlining” to see if I could pull these hidden answers out of my head. No dice. I ended up with pages of bullshit answers that I’d concocted because they fit the template of things I *should* want to do, rather than things I actually want to do.
I followed through with some of the bullshit answers and found myself doing some travelling. It was largely escapism though. I was trying to ignore the fact that I needed find things to do with my time and so I hopped on planes to different places to avoid having to figure it out. That, in itself, was something to fill the time though it was not overly useful as I just found myself sat in various Starbucks’ playing games on my laptop, and just happened to be in another country.
While aimless travel wasn’t the answer, it was positive in one major way: I got to meet some extremely interesting people who actually knew what to do with their time – they did dance classes, and singing classes, they rode horses, they cooked, they made wine or music or art, some just partied all the time and some just spent time outside going for walks. I’d ask them how they found the things that they liked to spend their time doing and they’d look a little bewildered, as though the answer was so obvious that the question meant no sense. One of them eventually gave me the answer, the whole answer, I think:” try things! Try new things all the time and stick with the ones you like, ditch the ones you don’t”.
When I was presented with the answer I was at a very very low point so I quipped back some bullshit about disliking everything, a symptom of that boring apathy I indulge in sometimes.
But then I took the answer and mulled on it.
Took a few months to marinate properly but eventually I realised it is the antidote I was seeking. In reality, my issue was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my time because I didn’t know what I liked because I haven’t done enough things to determine which ones I actually like to do. I needed to try more things.
Shit, I still need to try more things but I’m getting there! I have the antidote now and I am gradually getting comfortable with trying new stuff so that I can use my time better. How lovely.
So if you find yourself in this position where time is your enemy and you don’t know what do with it, here’s the answer: try new things, try them often. Stick to what you like, and ditch what you don’t. You’ll live a far more interesting and full and rich life by doing this. You’ve got this. Good luck.
On a related note, I was on instagram earlier and saw this pic that kinda explains how I feel at the minute:
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom – Søren Kierkegaard
If you want to outwit the devil, it’s terribly important you don’t give him advance notice – Alan Watts
Our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them – Seneca
Favourite song for now:
Sumb Luck 