Even now when I’m unemployed and have all the time in the world, I find myself wishing I had more time. More time to see friends I haven’t in a while. More time to pursue chess. Learn that new piano piece. Pick up my laundry list of hobbies in the backlog from dance to rock climbing. These days I often push myself to do more with the time I have. To feel more “productive.” And funny enough even in the few months of paid leave I have left when I have no actual responsibilities other than to enjoy my time, I have admittedly fallen into cycles of burn out and depression amidst the highs.
I’ve circled back to the conventional lesson that frequently we get so focused on “how” to live life in the optimal way that we forget what it means to actually live at all – a lesson I have still struggled to learn. It could be that grueling 80 hour a week job, telling ourselves that by the end of a couple more years you will be finally set and you can finally start living life. It could be pursuing the girl (or guy) of our dreams, or on the flip side dating multiple people at the same time convincing ourselves we’re taking steps in the right direction in figuring out our dating life. I’m not here to say that any of the above approaches are wrong. But as someone who is a master of taking one step forwards and two steps back, I kick myself in wondering “why haven’t I figured out my dating life yet” or “why haven’t I gotten that much better at chess”.
During my latest bout with this question, I’ve starting to conceptualize this productivity treadmill more akin to a game of whack-a-mole as a metaphor of my broader life journey. Where every time you hit one of those pesky moles, two more come up. And even though you feel like you’ve “nailed down” one part of your life (i.e. a singular mole), that same mole sneakily pops up later in life as a “new” problem to fix.
In tying this analogy to my personal life, I have undoubtably become a more confident and capable self in the dating world than my awkward high school self (a story for another time). Though despite across all metrics (for instance # of dates gone on) “proving” I’m further ahead along this vector, in reality I’ve grown up to become more jaded and, in some senses, lost the forest in the trees. Despite that 16-year-old Jerry having 9/10 things wrong about the dating world, that 1/10 of being true to your intentions, living with your heart on your sleeve, is a trait he knows better than today’s Jerry ever would. And despite it looking like the same mole popping up again, there are lessons for me to learn found in my past so long as I look beyond the frustration of still not getting it “right”.
At the end of the day, the broader take away to escaping this productivity treadmill is learning to live in the moment and taking things for what they are despite it looking like you’re taking two steps back. Where sometimes taking these steps back may really be the direction forward you’re looking for.
Admittedly especially in the hectic city of NYC, this is a lesson hard to internalize for long. Often though the best lessons in life are ones we learn over and over. In this case, as I learn time and again, not everything that glitters is gold.
Random Musings 