About two weeks ago I presented a rough draft of my all-inclusive daily routine that would lead me to bliss — not realizing that going from waking up to the sunshine lifestyle, to regimented minute-by-minute planning wouldn’t turn out as easy as I thought.
There’s a few non-negotiable things for me in my day: eating, sleeping, showering, brushing teeth, working out (3-4 days a week + nature on weekends), placing my crypto trades when necessary, and I’m striving to include meditation in there too. Adding in commutes, and that actually takes up a legitimate part of my day, especially if I have to cook/eat out. This doesn’t even include downtime with my girlfriend and being social, calling people back, and other things that I don’t let fall off either.
In my fantasy schedule I was going to chop up 6-8 hours a day between crypto research/programming and creative writing. I did casually remember that either of these will easily consume 100% of my brain activity, but chose to try to ignore that. What happened was I would do a so-so job on one of them, and basically nothing on the other one. I had to pick one, and (un)fortunately knew the answer.
I’m going to take a leave of absence from my creative writing for a little bit until I get the bulk of my crypto research finished. My new ideas create new ideas to research, and there is a list of high-priority ones that I am optimistic about, but I’ll never know until I put in the hours creating and testing them. It’s my actual career right now, and there is only a window of opportunity in this industry where I can operate successfully as a lone-wolf. I know that if I put good effort in this it can fund a long time of focused writing, but I have to admit it was still hard to come to terms with picking. I guess what it comes down to is understanding yourself, and I learn the hard way (over, and over again) that I’m not great at doing more than one main thing at once. I can get/do good at hard things, but only when I immerse myself in it, and allow myself the time to brainstorm morning to night different scenarios and ideas.
I actually enjoy my crypto research and activities, it’s not something I dislike. It’s just hard work, and the rewards are financial and secretive. I like sharing the results of my work with people, and am fortunate to have this blog at a minimum. If/when things become more automated/research is mostly done I’ll be excited to jump back in and go on a writing bender.
Something that has helped me a bit with all of this is meditating. I’m not all-in pushing meditation on other people, and still figuring out how serious I am getting with it/the benefits. After re-reading the intro to “The Illuminated Mind” though the argument has been compelling enough for me to keep up with it.
One way meditation has been helping is wrapping my mind (although meditation is trying to shut that down… pretty tough so far) around the idea that I don’t have to hurry up and publish 100 books/fix education/change the world all before I die (with an any moment possibility of that happening). I’ve always used an achievement system to validate my plans and make my goals. A race against the clock for money and accomplishment. I think it served me well in my youth, building my confidence that I could get almost anything I wanted if I tried hard enough. Now I’m working towards a transition of being content with whatever I’m doing. I still like challenges and the journey that come (maybe not on the days when my programs are malfunctioning and I’m mashing the keyboard though), but I feel like living an overall good life brings enough of a positive butterfly effect to the world.
With that diatribe over a few things that I’ve been enjoying:
- Friday Night Lights TV show (Not the movie, free with Amazon Prime): I saw it on several lists as one of the top 20 shows of all time. I ignored it for a long time, and only recently started it because it was free to stream on Amazon Prime, and I had less than an hour in the evening before bed with my girlfriend. For someone who watches a lot of violent thrillers, sci-fi, and in general intense/cerebral films/shows, this has been a very different treat. The football stuff quickly takes a backdrop to social issues of family, school, community, small towns, etc. It gets emotional in a good way, and is a fun nightcap before bed.
- Robb Wolf’s “The Food Matrix” pdf. I’d seen this years ago, and ignored it. I’ve been trying various macro diets, but I don’t think I handle carbs well right now, and the scale wasn’t moving (and I need it to). Got pretty scary as exercising more barely moved the needle too, and just made me hungrier. It turned out that I had to go back to the gold standard: meat, veggies, and some fat (oil/nuts). Not Keto though. I tried that and hated the energy swings + digestion issues. I take 40+ grams of carbs in my workout protein drink, and an apple/berries once or twice a day, but other than that meat and veggies. It started working instantly, just like how I forgot that it does. It’s so simple, but I felt better right away and dropped 3-5 pounds this past week. Even if that is water weight, that is 3-5 pounds of water weight I’m not lugging around all day.
With that I’ll leave you with a pic from last week nighttime in Medellin:
Andrew Manser 
Andrew, Creative writing takes so much time and effort. I think you are doing the right thing to take a break… however, if you do an hour a day it shouldn’t interfere with your progress in everything else… you will see that it will unfold itself and next thing you know it’s already been two hours time!
All the Best, Jazmin
Been thinking this over too, that might be a better move thank you! I can’t devote as much as I want to it, but I can squeeze something in even if it won’t be the same energy.