@disk_poet Yes that's also what made me pick up the book. I played a bunch of Pen & Paper RPGs while I was studying in the UK. But now in Germany it seems hard to find a group.
While writing the paragraph I realized that it kind turned into rambling, but I'm stuck in a train for 5 hours and am pretty bored, so I'll just type what's on my mind.
I've been thinking a bit about my web of goals, it's just that I don't really have many goals or really do much
Obviously, I work which would have the first order effects of earning money, improving my programming skills, and saving money (or frugality) due to the really cheap employee apartment and some other fringe benefits, I might also add exercise in the mix, simply because I walk to work whenever I have to be in the office (about 2-3 times a week) which is a nice 30min walk for one direction.
But other than that, I can't really think about much. So I tracked what I did do for a whole day, and unsurprisingly I spend way too much time watching random YouTube videos, or just mindlessly scrolling through one of the many social media sites. Which lead me to just getting rid of that, ironically it was a YouTube video that talked about social media and video games destroying our dopamine balance that gave me the final push. I logged out of all the accounts, closed the tabs and shut down my computer for that day. I wasn't on any social media site in the past 5 days and let me just say it feels great and terrible.
Side note: I don't count this forum, simply because it doesn't promote mindless scrolling like modern sites, I usually just read a handful of threads I follow and answers some DMs, and to be honest I mostly use it when I am bored at work anyways
The good side is that I was a lot more productive. I kept on top of my household chores, got a lot of stuff done at work and did a lot of reading, which was my fall back whenever I had no idea what to do.
The downside is that I am bored, a lot. Especially after the first two days or so, once I cleaned up every corner of my apartment, and finished the books I was reading at that time. I also felt a bit bad if I simply just read for a whole afternoon. Yes, it's better than watching cat videos, but in the end I still only consume content. In my morning journalling sessions I realized that I often think about myself as more of an consumer than a producer. I mean, if I weigh both sides, how much I produce and how much I consume. The consuming side would always win. Now I can try to cut down even more of the consuming activities, but if I don't really have any outputs, they will never outweigh the inputs.
Now, there were some things I was interested in, and still am for some of them, that would let me produce something in return. One thing would be writing, another would be coding, etc. but in the past I always thought about how to turn it into a side hustle and make money with it, and I think that is where the problem was. I ruled out a bunch of ideas because I couldn't see how they would be profitable in the near future. Why do a project on the side that won't make me money if I could just work another 8 hours and earn money right now, was a common thought. I think that changed now, mostly because I was re-listening to one of Naval's podcasts episodes, there was this one simple quote:
When looking for a purpose to life, notice that most things are stepping stones, done for ulterior motives. True art, love, and play stand apart, as they are done for their own sakes.
This, combined with a habit of showing my work should solve the problem of not knowing what to do. Because it's not that I don't know what do, it's that I didn't want to do things that have no instant monetary value. But if I put that aside, and do what I want to do, for the sole purpose of creating something, who cares if I make money with it or not. I will most likely retire in 5-6 years, that's over three decades earlier than others my age, why do I care so much about earning extra money and maybe retiring a year earlier. I should just enjoy the ride.
Mentioned showing my work above, simply because I feel that in today's world, everything that isn't publicly available pretty much doesn't exist. The only way my time was really wasted, is if nobody can interact with what I did. And there isn't really any downside to just dumping whatever I do onto a website or something similar.
Morale of the whole mess of a paragraph:
I want to use my time, especially my upcoming christmas vacation, to start producing whatever is on my mind and with that start figuring out and spinning my web.