I have about 25 more years to go.. ugh.
I cannot wait to do nothing. And once I get bored, then I'll do some volunteer work.
I envy you.
Yes I count my blessings and am grateful every day. But corporate grind sucksssssssss
What do guys do day-to-day? Don't tell me it's filled with 'productive' crap. Ugh.
The grind is really hard. Corporate America isn't setup for personal happiness & growth, it's setup to use people as disposable meat machines & to make the higher-ups wealthy. The only morality is legality. Case in point, Jeff Bezos & Amazon:
Can you imagine how life-changing a $100k bonus would be for someone making $17 an hour slinging boxes at an Amazon Warehouse? His 4-minute space flight is estimated to have cost nearly $5.5 billion dollars:
As I've gotten older & as personal happiness has become more important to me, the thing I've come to realize is that what we're taught about happiness is almost entirely wrong! As I've studied people who are really happy, I've noticed they tend to have two things:
1. High energy
2. Great plan
Living in the grind day in & day out can beat us down mentally, emotionally, and physically, to the point where all we look forward to is doing nothing. But in reality, that's just a combination of low energy & lack of a clear, personally-motivated plan. For starters, our energy level is our very first filter in the world. This begins when we wake up (see the video below), as well as how much our energy tanks during the day. This is one of the reasons I'm so keen on
doing macros - I suffer from chronically low energy & end up sort of hating even the fun stuff I look forward to, when the time comes to actually do it! The only way I've found to work around that is to make sure I'm getting enough sleep (generating human growth hormone), exercising daily (releasing endorphins), and feeding my organic meat machine high-octane fuel (aka food, which releases dopamine & provides us with energy). Managing those neurotransmitters on a daily basis is sort of like opening the gate for your Kentucky derby race horses to run free...they can't run if we don't put in the effort into opening the gate! i.e. getting lots of sleep, exercise, and food.
But, it's not just about managing our energy levels. While our energy levels (plus our attitude) control a large part of how much we
enjoy doing stuff, productivity & actually getting stuff done, for me at least, also needs to be
personalized. "Being productive" is about the most motivation-killing phrase I can think of for me personally lol. Generic productivity just doesn't fly on my radar. I wrote up my basic approach over on this post:
The short version is, we all have a bunch of stuff to deal with in life, and ultimately, it's our responsibility to decide what additional stuff we want to do on top of just surviving - having a job we look forward to working at, hobbies we're interested in doing, and then coupling that with high energy so that we actually enjoy being immersed in doing cool stuff every day. A story that really changed my perspective is about the three guys building a catedral:
The story of three bricklayers is a multi-faceted parable with many different variations and analogies, but it is rooted in an authentic story.
sacredstructures.org
One day in 1671, Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.”
The first dude had a job, the second guy had a career, but the third guy had a
vision. In high school, our guidance counselors tell us to "follow our dreams" & then we slog off to corporate America & our dreams die lol. The good news is, it's never too late to improve our lives by choice (I'm a certified late-bloomer!). So my recommendation is don't wait until retirement & just look forward to doing nothing, throw off those wageslave shackles, figure out how to get yourself into a consistently high-energy state, and start creating personalized definitions of success in your life so you're not stuck just existing & not enjoying! It's taken me a couple decades post-high school to figure this stuff out, but I enjoy life a lot more these days because even though I have to work for a living, I enjoy what I do & I have enough energy for it not to be a fight every day!
The trouble is, of course, that all sounds like a lot of extra work & it's easier to ignore it hahaha