Productivity isn’t everything
I’m the kind of person who tries to be productive all the time. I see everything as black & white, whether it adds anything to me, or not. The end result is I stopped watching movies, avoided social gatherings, studied relentlessly for hours, and shunned everything that's tagged as unproductive by society.
Do you know where it led me? Nihilism. A void.
At some point, I started questioning why am I doing all the productivity nonsense? Where it’s leading me…maybe to a good job, a good social status. What’s the use of having a good job, good social status? Suddenly in my life, everything seemed to be meaningless. I was afraid that my life would end up in the vicious cycle of waking up, eating, studying/working, sleeping.
But soon after many hours of deep-self-contemplation, sleepless nights, I arrived at some conclusions, which goes against some of the famous sayings, that changed the way I perceive life.
1. Feel like not doing it? Don’t do it
Being productive is important but trying to burn the candles at both ends will surely burn you out too, no matter how good you are doing it. I can recall the quote that pushed on the days even when I didn’t feel like doing it,
You can’t except to succeed if you only put in works on the days that you feel like it
This is one of my favorite quotes that made my boat sail in the right direction even on stormy days. But the problem with it was, my boat never stopped sailing, going and going on without docking somewhere until it got stuck in an unexplainable void, emptiness.
I understand, in order to succeed, we must be persistent but we tend to deliver poor results when we are just doing it for the sake of not breaking the streak so when you feel like not doing it, then please don’t do it.. grab some coffee, go out, and do whatever that put you back on the track.
2. Delaying gratification does not always work
Have you ever postponed watching the movie that’s everyone was talking about until you at least finish half of the newly bought Udemy course? Yes, I was in that place. I used to skip watching the latest movies, series, hanging out with friends, etc, only to save myself from wasting my productive time.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” -Muhammad Ali
Delayed gratification is a good thing, but there’s a limit to everything. If you are grinding every weekend without even spending time with your family, not checking on your friends, not watching your favorite TV show only for the sake of being productive, then believe me it's not worth it.
Some opportunities don't come again. You can’t spend much time with your children if they become teenagers, you can’t really watch a movie if the spoilers are everywhere, there’s a huge difference between watching live matches and highlights.
You don’t have to sacrifice day-to-day brief happy moments in order to live your dream life.
Stop thinking “If I [do/achieve] this, I will be happy” and try to be happy right now, I say right now.
I still try to be as productive as possible, but productivity isn’t my only concern anymore. I realized there's much more to life than working in a closed four walls hoping every day that crossing the last item in my To-Do list would make me happy.
At the end its the journey we talk about, not the destination.
