Category Archives: The Ones Where I Try To Give Advice

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Free Time Costs Time

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A year ago, I went to Italy. I did it for a program I no longer study and to learn about myself. I didn’t go with an American group. I went by myself and lived in an international student dorm for three months.

It was life-changing. The most life-changing part was that for three months, I had an insane amount of free time. I was in class only about seven hours a week, and my reading outside of class never took me more than ten hours a week. If I had consolidated all of that into one day, I would have been able to do it without any problem. Essentially, I had six days of free time.

I am rather sure that at no point in my life will I again have that much free time. Free time like that sounds wonderful, but it isn’t. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking and hard. It involves a lot of sleeping and a lot of dreaming and a lot of thinking about the world. And it’s aggravating.

I’ve been really super busy lately, and I find myself continuing to think back to those three months and thinking that it would be really great to go back to that. But then I remember how much I love most of the things I am doing right now and how much I hated doing nothing for extended periods of time and how even when I had a bunch of time, I still didn’t get everything done that I wanted to get done.

We don’t evaluate what we are doing often enough. We think that time grows on trees. We think that we can find it lying underneath couch cushions like lost change. We think that it is hidden at the bottom of bottles or in a kiss. It’s not, though. Steve Jobs once said:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

A year ago I went to Italy. That year isn’t being kept on a shelf.

What do you do with your time? Do you really love it?

 

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Take a Risk, Read This Post

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Some days I don’t feel like writing. Those are typically the days when I most need to write.

I started writing today with a post in mind. I was going to write about crushes and mushy stuff like that. Then I texted my friend and was trying to find this quote for my post, and I realized I didn’t want to write about crushes and mushy stuff. What I wanted to write about was life and allowing yourself to experience it.

I am a person. I am a person who wants to be something. I am not currently that something. But I believe that I have a responsibility to the people around me to continue to be the person I currently am. And so I refuse change and stay away from things that I know would be difficult for me or that would challenge me.

This is all kind of deep. Donald Miller says it much better.

No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath… We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it? – Through Painted Deserts

I asked a friend once if I take risks. And she said, “no.” Then I tried giving her counterexamples. What about the time I kept that library book until the last minute? What about the time I skipped class? What about the time I spent $10 on a book I wanted? First, she laughed. Then she told me that those were all calculated risks – that I was taking risks that ultimately didn’t matter, that had no impact on how people saw me, that didn’t affect me in any significant way. She was right.

If there is something I really want and the only way I can get it is by taking a risk, then I don’t do it. That’s silly. Life’s too short and all that jazz.

Help me take risks and leave your encouraging risk-taking story in the comments!

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Nat King Cole is My Drill Sergeant

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There are two things I am really good at in my life right now. Social networking and posting daily blogs. My friend recently commented on how he was impressed by my ability to update every day. He didn’t realize that my motivations were maliciously selfish. I suppose that anyone who writes a blog is being a little egotistical, but I have taken it to a much darker level. I post every day because I love seeing my views go up, and I know that now that I have established this as a daily blog, to fail to post every day would result in a loss of views. And my ego wouldn’t be able to handle that.

Even though this is an entirely horrible motivation, it works because I get immediate pay-off for my work. The more posts I have, the more views I get. And while I’m worried about views, I am becoming a better writer, meeting new people, and learning about myself. The positives far outweigh the fact that this blog encourages evil, detestable behavior.

The same thing is true for social media. The more people I friend and follow on Twitter, the more people are likely to friend and follow me. And that’s an immediate reward, and I love it.

I have been obsessed recently with motivating myself and trying to figure out how to reward myself for working hard. I recently started listening to Pandora’s Easy Jazz station while I work. That motivates me because it makes me feel like all my work is the important travails of a man living in 1920s-1950s New York. And that’s pretty wonderful. I don’t own any suits, but when I work, I feel like I do.

But I’ve been trying to find creative ways to give myself immediate rewards that are actually beneficial. (I could watch television after every paper I finish or something but that seems like a bit of a waste of time.) I want rewards that relate directly to my work. I like my work; I do. It’s just… work.

Some people just came up with a really smart idea for motivating people to work out. It’s called Fitocracy. It’s basically a real life video game for working out. You enter in your workouts on this website, and it gives you points, and you get rewards and stuff. Super super cool. I want to find more creative ways for motivating myself, you know?

How do you motivate yourself?