I always felt like I should be doing more.
Do you get that? It’s this lingering feeling of “Oh man, I could have done X today but all did was nothing”. It’s that experience of looking at your ceiling on your bed, eyes wide open, regretting the day you just had. I spent such a big portion of my life in that zone of feeling and I still remember that feeling even if I don’t participate in it anymore.
I have a bunch of Japanese study guides because I really wanted to properly learn Japanese outside of just saying popular anime lines. I have a synthesizer that’s just sitting in my drawer because I wanted to get more into synthesizer music. There’s a lot of kitchen appliances quietly collecting dust because I’m not doing anything with it but I can’t commit to doing something with it.
Then why don’t I do it? The reason why I don’t do things now is very different from the reasons why I didn’t do something in the past, and today I’m interested in talking about the past. I didn’t do things because I was afraid of not having enough time in my day.
Not having enough time inspires a specific kind of fear, fear of you not being in control of your own time. This makes you feel like you’re at the mercy of a greater power, you don’t feel enough agency and self-authority in your own life and sheesh, I can clearly see how much that feeling sucks.
Are we truly not going to have enough time when we commit to diving into a new interest? Is it truly impossible to be happy when we don’t have enough time? The second question is more important in my opinion. You may know I have a deep obsession with unconditional happiness, and if happiness is truly unconditional that means we should be able to be happy whether we have time or not.
Then is the first question still relevant? When I’m happy with the time I have, I don’t need to worry about not having enough time. This is great, we went from two questions to one!
How do we become happy with a full day? Let’s think about this. Think of the most packed day and consider how you feel about that day. There’s two options here, if we’re greatly simplifying: one is the feeling of “oh man, that would suck” vs. the other of “oh man, that would rock”. What is the difference between the two?
This would be a great thought exercise that would take about ten minutes of silence if we were working together, but let me save you the trouble: the answer is a day filled with things you don’t want to do but are forced to for an external reason sucks, and a day filled with things you want to do rocks.
Imagine I’m Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman and I’m spending the entire day at the mall. This is an absurd hypothetical thought exercise and I apologize for the mental image, it’s just that I happened to come across this movie while scrolling through YouTube shorts (clearly I have too much time on my hands!). I shop all day from morning to evening, and the mall is about to close up. Then suddenly Richard Gere shows up on the intercom and says: the mall is open 24 hours today!
Julia Roberts would exclaim, but all the shop workers would cry in agony. Isn’t that crazy? Even though they’re at exactly the same location, their reaction to the 24 hour operation is different depending on who they are there for.
When I don’t exercise ownership of my life and I do things for other people, I am going to suffer for it the more things I do. Things seem to make sense so far. But now couldn’t one argue that the mall employees are there for themselves too, because they’re there to make money for themselves?
Why do we get burnt out working at the job that’s feeding us? The job that gives us our career and reputation? Why do we have a hard time waking up for something that’s sustaining our livelihood?
Many of us engage with our life with the mindset of “I have to”. I have to have a good career, because I’m better than a minimum wage job. I have to have a job, because I need money. I have to make money, otherwise I can’t do the things I want to do with money. Then… Why do we need to do the things we want to do with money? Because things that don’t cost money doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t make me happy.
This entire mental gymnastics is ultimately centered around happiness. We gatekeep our own happiness until we get certain conditions met, but that is the biggest trap we set for ourselves. Why? Because again, happiness is unconditional. We can be happy today.
It’s possible to live our packed day happily when we remember that we chose the best way to fill our days, and that all of our efforts and pursuits benefit us. Why don’t you work at another job, whether it’s higher pay or lower pay? Higher pay would bring more stress than you can handle, and lower pay would make your life more difficult. So you chose the best job available for you, isn’t that already great?
Everything you experience at your job gives you more life experience and wisdom, making your tomorrow more informed. Isn’t that great? Even if you have to work with that one coworker you despise, it gives you different choices of benefits. You can practice how to deal with difficult situations so that you’ll handle it better tomorrow. You can understand yourself a little bit better by observing at what point you’re pissed off at other people. Everything in your life can be of benefit to you.
I always try to fill up my day with things, and I don’t just mean productive things. Today I hit legend rank on a new video game I recently got into called The Bazaar. I’ve been a gamer my entire life and this is actually the FIRST TIME I hit the highest rank in a competitive video game ever. Isn’t that crazy?
I wake up early and practice Buddhism. I coach people. I play games. I lounge on the sofa with my dogs. I cook for my wife and train jiujitsu. I record podcasts and write articles. All of these things I do because I want to. So even in a fully packed day, I always have time. And that is why I want to tell you: You will have time. Even if you take that big leap of faith that looks like a Red Bull sponsored cliff base jump, you will have time.
Learn how to master your own time by working with me. Get started by emailing me at billy@julylifecoach.com or book time with me.
Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com
