Ask Lemmy

9 hours of chilling for 1 hour of bettering myself. Gotta feel rested.

I work 65 hours a week but its a fine job

Oh fuck that. If I worked 65 hours a week, no way in hell would I worry about bettering myself during the workweek. Maybe an hour or 2 on the weekend.

It might be interesting for you to look into taoist philosophy. Part of it is how self-improvement is mostly just a bunch of wankery.

This is how my wife described it to me a few days ago:

Anyway, Taoist philosophy can sort of be reduced to, you already know how to be a person. When other people tell you that they know better than you about how to be a person, about what matters, what's worth doing, what's the path to achieving your wishes, there's no real reason to believe them. They're adding complications that aren't particularly substantial, and that definitely aren't universally applicable. There's no reason to assume that any other human being has brain droppings which are more golden and less smelly than your brain droppings.

Oh look, it's another me.

First off, forget those self help social media posters. Many are full of shit trying to make money off your purchases of their classes. If they sound batshit, they're not a good fit for you.

I've attempted hundreds of projects. Most don't come through. Many are ongoing. Many are in the forgotten abyss. I used to be sad about all of that. I'd find parts to a project that got superseded by a totally different design. I still find project parts to vehicles I've sold. Games I've forgotten, games where I suddenly stopped 20% through, "worthless" games where I've got hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. I used to be sad about not paying proper respect to great games and instead falling for quick match or battle Royale types.

The root of the sadness is similar to yours: we have finite time. Gotta make the most of it, right? Play the best games, create the art I dream of, build the best version of my car the community has ever seen, ride the most miles on the bike, see the most mountains, try the most beers, have the most nights out.

Not so much anymore. I have finite time to experience things, but I also have a finite rate of consumption. I do not have time to do it all. When I was younger, living with my parents or living in a low maintenance apartment, the world seemed so open. It seemed so devoid of me. Moving into a house of my own was like the dolly zoom moment of my life. Partly because I came face to face with all my incomplete projects and forgotten hobbies as I properly packed them at my parents'. Partly because so many of the "must do" house projects are still not done, not even prioritized, 3 years later.

And yet, the world has not ended. I'm not a failure. I'm still enjoying things. But I have limited time for pleasure and limited money to do so. I cannot do it all, and that's fine. I say yes to what I can. Does it really matter if I don't make a drawing because I gave a new album a full listen-through? Does it really matter if my car isn't the most special build because I took the bike for a dozen rides instead? I'll do what I can when I can. I still have what I consider to be a high productivity drive, but I worked to be more satisfied with what I have done and less critical of what I haven't done. I'm not lacking in these fun things because I'm lazy, I'm lacking because work and sleep take more time of my life than anything while chores/repairs/errands eat so much of the rest of it. It's not my fault, and it's not yours either - especially with you 65hr work weeks.

Actually, let me repeat that: it's not your fault, especially with your 65 hour work weeks. Being bored at your job puts the mental restlessness into overdrive. That does not help you feel accomplished with these other interests because I'm sure you aren't getting into them as deeply with what little time you have left in the day.

It's OK to relax. If you're in a comfortable situation, your life is healthy, your home is secure, and you relationships are maintained, then anything else is a bonus. There's no wrong way to relax. Theres no wrong way to have fun. There's no way to be perfect so sometimes, relaxing is the best way to better yourself.

PS: books sit somewhere between video games and movies, but not in a line. While I certainly struggle to read at times I'm not trapped in a plane, there's a good chance you haven't tried the right book. You don't have to read the great dramas or the cleverest mysteries. My gateway was Revelation Space, largely because my visualizations and feelings were rooted in 1,000 hours of the game Elite Dangerous. The quasi-personal experiences in the game had some decent overlap with the voids of space and desolate planets, devoid of life. Not that close, but close enough when a plot less game gets paired with the excellent descriptions of an author.

Polymath Bertrand Russel, 1932...

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.

https://files.libcom.org/files/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20In%20Praise%20of%20Idleness.pdf

I've just resigned myself to the fact that the things that interest me aren't often recognized as valuable in our society, but just because a mad world doesn't recognize their worth doesn't mean I'm not improving myself with them. Studying history, learning languages that interest me, learning how to cook or sew, none of them are likely to get me a particularly well paid job or anything, but they're all either skills or knowledge I can take with me, even if nobody else appreciates it at the time.

Just dedicate a part of your day to self improvement and when you fulfill that time each day allow yourself to relax. If you spend just 30 minutes to an hour each day to something productive you’re ahead of the game already. Even if you theoretically dedicated every non-working or sleeping hour in your day to building or learning something, you have to understand that there’s only so much you can absorb and retain in a day, only so much energy your body has, and only so much stress your endocrine system can take. Your body and brain need downtime in order to actually commit those things you learned to memory, to replenishing your energy stores for the next day, for flushing the cortisol from your bloodstream.

Those “Get up at 5 am every day and run” types aren’t telling you about the fact that even bodybuilders aren’t going 100% all out every single day. Your muscles grow when you rest and sleep, not while you’re at the gym. If you don’t fit both of these things into your life you won’t get anywhere.

Depends on your perspective. I consider taking time to read a book or doing some gardening to be bettering oneself. A 5am run would benefit me to be in better shape, but it deprives me of an hour of sleep.

For reference, I don't have any level of ADHD!

I recommend reading Marcus Aurelius, he reflects on a lot of similar things I think. Nas it's inherently interesting to read an ancient Roman emperor deal with the same doubts as a regular modern person.

Concretely, consider working around 40 hours instead, and spend some of the extra time meditating to tune out external expectations, while tuning in to your own short and long term goals.

Happiness is the absence of pain

But outside of this you do what you need to do to get through a day.

Im not big on bettering myself as an independent activity. Like I have done the gym thing but I prefer to use a standing desk, get around by walking or biking. Try to have time to enjoy walking my dog and do things like bring the mail to neighbors. Find ways to be active. Similarly I don't use smartphones and will do deep breathing semi mediation when waiting but also might take in the sights and sounds around me or if literature is available and seems decent will read through it. When shopping I double check the per unit costs because they can be wrong or just to use a common unit when they liste them differently to get the best deal. I play games like suduko and now clues by sam. might start doing brackets. I take advantage of opportunities like splunk having some hands on sessions for free lately. Work on my personal technology. I just get more like this the older I get. Its hard enough keeping up with everything. Honestly im kinda always like this. I hate doing something and just getting one thing out of it. The more I can accomplish kinda passively the better.

Just chilling is a way to better yourself

Bettering yourself is a life long process. But the time you have to relax is limited. One to two hours a day to better myself keeps me happy. The time I have left in the day is to relax when not working.

Chilling is a necessary part of improvement. You need recovery time. If you constantly push yourself, physically or mentally, you will burn out and can do legit damage to yourself.

I hate recovery days sometimes, but they are necessary. Like when I get sick or injured, I get really miserable because I can't do stuff I want to do and I lose progress, but it would be stupid to try and push myself. Last time I had the flu I tried working out after it was over and I crashed super hard, delaying my ability to get back to my schedule by another week.

You sound paralyzed by the infinite possibilities behind you, and you're worrying too much about the opportunity cost of how you spend your time. You do A, and then think about how you could have been doing B or C instead. But the truth is that at any given moment we can only do 1 thing, and as such are choosing not to do an infinite number of other things.

So, my kind of existential answer is that only you can decide what you should and shouldn't be doing.

If having stuff and doing stuff brings meaning and adds value to your life, then do it. If chilling out and relaxing in comfort and good company is meaningful and valuable to you, then do that instead.

In the end you will die, and after that, the death of the Earth, our star system, or galaxy and even the universe itself. We can interpret that fact to mean that nothing we do really matters, or we can interpret it to mean that anything we do is valid if we feel that is what we are driven to do.

As long as you are being a good person and fulfilling your obligations to others, then you should recognize the power that comes with freedom over your life. Keep looking forward.

I get hit from both in waves.

I'll spend anywhere from weeks to a couple months on self improvement, but on the tail end it will be all rote and forced until I'm so bored I can't take it.

Then I'll do the exact same thing with chilling.

Weird part is, when I'm at the start of either wave, it feels like I've discovered the true secret of living a fulfilled life.

I can definitely relate to this question. The tension between self-improvement and self-acceptance. The older I get, the more I lean towards the latter. I've spent waaayy too long beating myself up over my faults, but never managing to correct them. Why continue feeling bad?

When it comes to being a more prosocial, peaceful, emotionally stable person, I've made much progress (thank God!). I just don't like feeling like a villain, knowing (because, for better or for worse, I see these things somewhat clearly) I was the cunt in the situation and that I could and should have "taken the higher road". I was talking about it with my wife earlier today and I think it's partly a function of my pride: being an overall negative influence in the world is simply for lesser men, and I am not/won't let myself be one of those.

For everything else, I'm a complete mess. Yeah, I have worked well and steadily, never been fired or even reprimanded, and have gotten decent results in academia despite the fact I worked full time whilst studying... but besides that idk, I don't keep much track of things I could improve (but I should). Thankfully, I'm married, so I'm constantly lovingly coerced into betterment, lol.