Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I am finding myself feeling bored and despondent about life lately.

Most of my time seems to be filled with working lots in my professional job and then doing consulting work on top and then errands and ERE related strategies - investing and saving money hacks, as well as avoiding expensive activities and undertaking a sufficient exercise regime to keep in shape. It is starting to feel like groundhog day all the time. It always feels like there is some activity I must complete which requires a fair amount of discipline and avoidance of carefree living. I feel time poor and time vanishes on me. All work and no play. Becoming very bored and boring and repetitive.

What tips do people have to add some spice to my life?

Friends, family, partner. People rather than things, money, or experiences are the most satisfying interactions to me.

I find live music both invigorating and soothing when I'm working too much. When I worked downtown, it was easy to find live music during my lunch hour or right after work. It could be anything from attending afternoon rehearsals at the Academy to eating lunch outside the building where the opera students practiced to going to the Khyber Pass to catch the Dead Milkmen. Even in the burbs I can find live music at farmers markets and different festivals.

danger, something like motorcycle racing or wingsuit gliding.

A friend once said to me: "After you punch someone in the face really hard, you never feel quite the same again"

(I don't actually recommend doing that)

brute found the opposite more enlightening.

Yoga. It's as difficult as you want. At times it's zen and other times requires total focus. There's a glimpse of people that are more carefree yet far enough away that they never become an annoyance.

...

Some ideas :

-Adjust your ERE plan. Is FI/ERE a goal in itself, or is it a mean to something else (happiness through idleness, or exercising some skill, or traveling, etc.). If it as a mean to, say, traveling, and if you feel comfortable with the safety your FU money brings, then maybe you should consider pushing back you FIRE date and allow yourself to inject more traveling in your life until then. (I didn’t follow your posts very carefully, so pardon me if I missed some info about your plan.)

-Is there some activity you used to love, but stopped doing for some reason (too much work, etc.)? Maybe get back to it. I’m always surprised at how much I enjoy making photos after I stopped for some time, and wonder why I didn’t make more time for it.

-According to this here-oft-quoted chart (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ll.svg.png), you might need a challenge (or the intense-but-short, double backflip over a car variety, not the low-intensity-but-long, ERE variety).

-Spend time with funny friends.

-Take a vacation. Not for “recharging your battery”, i.e. until you drain yourself again, but because you might be shot and ego-depleted. Sounds like you work a lot, and might have taken too much work. In those cases, it’s hard to think clearly about your goals, etc. Having a week or two to rethink your plan with a fresh head might help.

-If none of this works, there’s always hookers and cocaine

Skydiving only costs about 100 bucks.

Don't know your relationship status, but if you're single it usually helps to go sow some wild oats. Go out and meet a bunch of potentials. Then, when more than one of them seems like they are interested, you will have to make some choices. Life will suddenly seem adequately spicey.

Try not to be so boring to yourself.

Is it really boredom that's the problem?

It seems more like it's too much focus on discipline (an external problem --- also noting that solution proposals seem to be external too: go do X) than an internal problem. So you loaded up on a ton of good habits, but now that seems tedious and uninspiring.

The easy solution is to relax one of the disciplines. Take a "vacation" from it. Don't exercise daily for a month for example. Alternatively, find a new way of doing something you already do. Switch from football to handball.

If the issue is being too austere and denying yourself this or that in order to absolutely maximize savings; there are ways around that too.

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Sat May 13, 2017 7:14 pm

going to the Khyber Pass to catch the Dead Milkmen.

I knew you were a "Punk Rock Girl" at heart. Never mind the "Bitchin' Camaro."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyaK3jo4Sl4

I think some of this was filmed at the Eastern State Pen.

If one of my friends were telling me the stuff you just did, I would encourage him to quit looking for the spice to life and go for life itself.

What is the point of living for the future if the present is a nightmare? Reconsider your priorities, your web of goals, and figure out what each of your activities contributes to it. Cut out all the things that are more negative than positive. E.g. your professional job sounds like a nightmare, but the pay check makes you do it. Maybe you should learn to love your job for all the money it provides you - or quit it. Learn to love your exercise program for this wonderful, healthy body it gives you - or quit it. A. s. o. And once you have quit everything you hate and that ruins your mood, you will not be searching for spices to build up a new existence, but for life itself.

To me it sounds like you're "overdoing" it. Trying to do too much of good stuff. And trying to do none of the fun stuff. I would relax a bit and add some truly free time to your life. Time during which you can do what you want to do, not what you have to do. A little bit of playtime every now and then.

I think the things that are boring you sound fun. I love doing that kind of stuff.

You can challenge yourself by trying to double things. Save N dollars, try to save 2N for example.

This reminds me of a classic simpsons.

http://youtu.be/2Pbywpi64Tg

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions. Very helpful. I think I need more instant gratification.

This may not be of any help to you but what I'd do is up my focus on the things I am doing. It sounds like you spend a lot of time wishing you were doing something else, but the something else seems pretty vague, i.e., "carefree living". When I catch myself doing that (something that happens very often) I just stop and bring my attention to the present. Alternately, you could be more specific about what carefree living means, and armed with specifics you could look at what it would cost you to make time for them, and where the cost/benefit is favorable you could add them to your regimen.

There's two kinds of happiness: instant gratification, and long term fulfillment. People tend to focus on one or the other. I would bet this forum is full of people who favor the long term one. Every once in a while, we need to be reminded to "live a little."