Labor in Freedom - Why Should You Do It?
Albert Einstein said 📢
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom
“Labor in freedom”, that would surprise a lot of creative people. The problem could be the literal meaning of “labor” that we associate with, but even we consider “Work in freedom” would look like we are giving too much value to the work.
So before we move ahead let’s just say that Einstein was advocating “Not to waste free time”.
Richard Marcinko, retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander and Vietnam war veteran, says
The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.
It is not just for T-shirts or powerpoint presentations. Training and persistent practice has a lot of value
How you use free time can transform your like in a long run.
Are you are just waiting for the next notification or beep on your mobile phone; or are you reading next book on some new subject that you want to learn.
The choice is yours. You have your freedom. Use it.
The Future is Highly Personal
How do you tell your story defines you? In this online world, you are not a single entity. The Internet has given you the opportunity to express yourself. Take your passions online.
Learn new subjects and share your learnings with others. “The Digital You” is something that you are creating every time you read an article, tweet or click the like button. Choices you make and how you make those choices reveal a lot.
You are not just your work or family. In this connected world, you can make choices outside of your comfort level while sitting at home and become successful for yourself and benefit your family.
Eyes of the “Future You” is looking at you and if you spend all your free time endlessly consuming what’s there on the internet it is not different than proactively missing opportunities
Re-create Yourself by Being Yourself
Do you have some worthy goal? Attach your free time and effort to it. Learn what is required to achieve the next milestone. While you do all this just “Be Yourself”. Share the “real you” while creating the “future you”.
Transfer some of your skills and passions to the online world.
Instead of consuming internet content during all your free time — create something.
Being a creator benefits you a far more long-term and deeply nourishing happiness than consuming ever will. If you are consuming something great over a long period of time — have an online platform or blog to share your learning. Become an evangelist on the subject.
Consuming never ends. Every time you are connected to the internet, which is most of your day, you may face this dilemma whether to consume or create.
Find the best way to maintain your 🔗Create-to-Consume ratio.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says 📢
Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed
Regardless of how you feel today about learning something new, you need to adopt a learning mindset to create a foundation of your future life.
Deliberate practice is not enjoyable and requires discipline and hard work — so stretch your abilities beyond where you are comfortable.
Average Is Over
There are more rich people and more poor people than ever before. That broadening gap means dealing with one big, uncomfortable truth.
If you stay average you will become ‘useless class’ of human, thanks to extreme automation and technologies like artificial intelligence.
Increased use of internet, mobile media, and social media have reduced our ability to focus on a single thing for a longer duration. Overuse of screen time has fragmented out attention and we are seeing less and less of deep quality work
Car Newport in his book Deep Work says 📢
A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun
If you want to make something of yourself — you must find what you love, you must do what you love, you must create what you love; You must find time for all this. If you can’t find the time — then at least you can use free time in creating your future rather than watching the next youtube video that someone just shared.
Learning how to stay focused as doing 🔗deep work was never so critical. Most people don’t realize the value of deep work.
Think Long-term, Life-long, and Long-Tail
“A single fixed identity is a liability today,”, “It only makes people more vulnerable to sudden changes in economic or personal conditions. The most successful and healthy among us now develop multiple identities, managed simultaneously, to be called upon as conditions change.”
says Gail Sheehy in New Passages 📢
You are as good as the skills you possess. But what are those skills? Are they market relevant? Are they future ready? Can you see how those skills help you in 5 years’ time?
World Economic Forum says Demand for higher cognitive skills such as creativity, critical thinking and decision making, and complex information processing, will grow through 2030 at cumulative double-digit rates.
Widening gap between the skills available and skills in demand is certainly alarming and you should not overlook timely career advice.
You can re-invent your career by learning artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is drifting the status quo and this world is not yet ready to comprehend all the implications that it will manifest.
Life-long learning ability and dynamically updating your skills will prepare you to take advantage of hidden opportunities and pave the path for the personal vision for success.
You need to go beyond your theoretical education, skills, and experience. While designing your career strategy — start with self-awareness, have a craftsman mindset, and seek out for short-term and long-term skills that need to be adopted or enhanced.
Freedom seems to be a burden once you don’t know what to make out of your life
Following shallow pursuits like checking mobile every minute escapes us from any deliberate and deep work.
So proactively create a free-time task list
👉It will help you personally and professionally.
👉Pick up any small idea and create something around it.
💥 Use “Free Time” to “Reinvent Yourself” 💥
