The 3rd day of a 3 day long weekend is always my toughest. An off day if you will. I wake up and know that I need to get a new shower head because it drips. The base board near the front door needs to be replaced because it swells in humid weather and catches. The patio needs to be pointed towards the drain because hurricane Ida showed what happens when too much water gets involved. Then I start contemplating the bigger picture of wanting to sell the place and move to a new location. The search begins looking around the area for new places. Then to consider getting a realtor for the buy sell aspect. I’ll have to hire a handyman to fix up the place in order to sell. Then I rework further and realize that I’m working hard, making money, and that if I don’t stop working, I’ll never have a chance to spend the money. That leads me to asking how much money I need to stop working entirely. Which inevitably leads to the question that if you have enough money, what would you do?
Rather than consider this complex question, I decided to visit my mom for a few hours. She’s nearly retired and I wanted to get her perspective on not working. We talked for an hour and she’s good at listening to me complain about my inevitably terrific life position all things considered. She throws some ideas at me like getting into a new social environment and *gasp* helping other people. I throw around that I might start playing tennis in the winter. Being out of the city and getting some peace and quiet outdoors helped my outlook for a minute until I was able to dive back into the drudgery of work today to occupy my time. Nothing seems to be as painfully boring as having nothing to do. Yet, my chief aim of life is to get to the point that I have nothing to do. Hmmm.
I’ll lay it out plain and simple in this paragraph, mainly for myself, but you can read it because I’m sharing it. You don’t have to read it. Remember that. I’ve spent that last 16 years fully dedicated to building a business. In my 20’s, I didn’t know what I was building. In my 30’s, the business found some success and opened some doors that were unavailable prior. As the business becomes more complicated with growth, its claws start digging deeper and deeper. This feeling is compounded when you start asking are you running the business or is the business running your life? Then you start comparing the money to the time spent and there are no easy answers. If you give up the business to live the Office Space dream of doing nothing, I know that after 2 weeks I’m going to be saying this isn’t right. Which with all the books I’ve read on business and self help they almost always stress having one chief aim in your life. Well what if your chief aim is building a business? That’s what keeps you going, then you build the business, and it turns out that having that chief aim doesn’t lead to anything! I’m simplifying that process because obviously I’m proud of helping build the business, but once it’s built, now what?
Which lead back to the daily routine most people are in where they are happy to have a few of life’s pleasures and wake up and do it again. Find some good friends. Improve yourself day in, day out. Read more. Tell yourself to enjoy your life. Pursue more chief aims! You get my point. It’s an endless loop where there isn’t any actual “winning”. Life is a game where no one wins. You roam around for a lifetime and then you die. You wonder why you’re born exactly the way are. Who created your circumstance and what your free will / fate brings you. Whether you control it or not is out of the question. That’s why I like Yuval Noah Harari’s thought of not even worrying about these questions and just go along for the ride. Whether you control it or not, just let it happen. Do the best you can and stop worrying.
I’ll play tennis with you whenever you want. I got back into doing weekly clinics last year and it helped me stay sane during the winter.
Do you have to be a member at a place to make it easier to play in the winter? My tennis iq is low but non-contact sports are where my life is headed.
I pay for a membership at UPenn tennis center and if you want to play indoor courts it’s likely necessary. I would recommend somewhere close to you that includes programming in the membership fees, which UPenn doesn’t do so I end up paying a lot for clinics/reservations.