Get up. Shower. Make Breakfast. Go to work. Grind. Lunch. Grind some more. Go home. Make dinner. Get the kids to bed. Clean the kitchen. Do some housework, maybe. Well, hell, it’s 10PM, I guess I’ll veg for a bit and then go to bed, ‘cause tomorrow will just be the same. And if you work in the service industry or hourly in any way – and I’ve been there – it is far, far worse – I am grateful to have a schedule – which is a complete luxury.
The biggest obstacle here that this routine doesn’t leave any time for personal development. Overcoming this cycle to progress – or even change course – is monumentally difficult. Personally, I am striving to bring my family into the realm of what’s colloquially referred to as “F.U. money” – basically the ability to take a year off work, or retire years early.
So what’s the outcome? For me, it’s stagnation. This complete halt in progress equates to falling behind in a competitive world, which diminishes my market value and cements me where I am now. If you’re hourly, the trap is even more confining, as acquiring new skills becomes an impossible dream.
Now, i don’t believe that there’s some grand conspiracy here to “keep people down”; rather this is an unintended consequence of a system maximizing productivity at the cost of individual growth. Factor in family obligations and the basic survival needs (e.g. eating) and there’s just no time to be … well … human.
So where does this leave me? Exhausted, and hopefully, undeterred. My only real option at this point is to leverage what dwindling time i have left. Instead of disappearing into the couch, i’ve got to focus on learning, creating, and hustling to break free from the quicksand of stagnation.
Oh, but this is hard, isn’t it?
I’ve tried time management techniques, but lose interest when the novelty fades. I’m drawn to learning – voraciously so – but i tend to stop at about 85-90%. This becomes a real problem when working with platforms like codacademy – I only continue to learn so long as it’s intriguing or challenging – and just because it stopped being challenging doesn’t mean that there’s nothing more to learn.
Ultimately, i think it’s going to come down to a perspective switch. I’m going to have to think about the long term versus the short term. And that’s a challenge – in the moment I’m “small picture” but in the long term? I’m very much “big picture” – i tend to see the patterns of where things are headed, but not so much the small details of how I can best leverage that.
In the end, vision isn’t just about seeing the destination – it’s all the bits along the way; the challenge becomes a blend of persistence and adaptability. Time may be a finite resource, but creativity and determination are endless, and i trust that within those limitless expanses that I’ll find my way. So here’s to stagnation, discomfort, and a desire for an intangible more, and to greater things ahead.
as somebody who frequently gets recommended things like this, I’d like to congratulate you on being the first poster in a while I’ve seen that doesn’t AI generate all their stuff and actually writes well. good job. there’s not enough of these people left on WP.
Thank you for stopping by and letting me know you appreciated my writing! It’s generally always been a challenge for me to share things that I write and getting positive feedback is great. I completely agree that the overuse of AI generated content is completely out of hand.
I enjoyed looking over your recent posts as well, i appreciate your dada-esque approach and freeform responses to the prompts.