Draft!
- When you take control of your own time, you now have the unusual responsibility of managing all of it yourself. This is something you might not be used to. From the moment you start walking (crawling) the earth, someone else is likely managing your time for you. Telling you when to be where (at the breakfast table, in school, at football practice…). That’s what you are being trained for in school as well, being a good schedule-follower (rather than thinker, inventor, learner, etc.). And that has a good reason, because that’s how you’re very likely to make a decent living later in life, because being able to follow a schedule almost equals being a reliable person. Almost.
- Being presented with no schedule at all is at the same time great desire and ultimate horror. Of course, as a diligent schedule-follower, your greatest desire is holiday, or even the longer holiday with eventual death included: retirement. Many people work all their lives towards it, to then use their old brittle hands to spend all their cash they’ve used on… yeah well what exactly? And that brings us to the horror part: Whether you’re 26 or 67, you’re a person and you have to spend your time somehow, and for that structure your day somehow, and TV and video game marathons, drinking (or consuming your drugs of choice) and acquiring the color of a young lobster under the mediterranean sun quickly get old - faster than you. So until your eventual demise, and unless you’re busy battling disease or other catastrophic personal circumstances, you will always ask yourself, what you should do with yourself, as the human is a goal oriented and purpose driven animal.
- How do we solve the daunting task of creating satisfying and beautiful days in your life, which appears when you gain the luxury of “all the time in the world”? For me, the answer is practice. More specifically, a practice. And even more to the point, a combination of multiple practices.
- What is a practice? A practice is an activity that you do regularly, and that somehow grows something. For example, your skill, your strength, your knowledge, or the size of your wallet. Of course it can have negative consequences. If you’re following a criminal practice, you will also grow your rap sheet with the local law enforcement. Common practices: sports, other physical pursuits, musical instruments, other artistic pursuits, prayer, meditation and other spiritual pursuits. These are common ones, but of course every activity can be a practice.
- Let’s look at it this way. Most job and school occupations, which you might call “regular life paths”, are really just a combination of practices. School is pretty much the practice of showing up, and then figuring out what you have to do to pass each year, and if you do that often enough you end up with a degree. Now that I think about it, a job at the very base level is the same thing, and you end up with money in the bank each month. Now, this is not a very ambitious way of looking at school or work, but it’s certainly possible to break them down like that. If we want to be slightly more specific and respectful, most work is a combination of practices. Among them: dressing the part, interacting appropriately with your peers and clients, concrete skills like analyzing, programming, strategizing, bricklaying, depending on what you do.
- And that’s really what your parents want you to do, so they don’t have to feel dread towards your (and their) existence. They want you to follow a practice that they trust if repeated will put a roof on your table and food over your head. For example, gaming was widely considered a waste of time, until it became widely profitable through Twitch, YouTube and the likes. So in 2020 it’s much easier to convince your parents to buy you a computer and let you game all day, than in 2000. Life is good.
- A single practice can carry you so far. You can play football (the real one, where you actually kick the ball with your foot, you know), and if you’re really good, you will be guaranteed decent fame and decent money and all the good things that come with that. Or if you’re a good painter, it is both deeply artistic, and deeply spiritual, you can structure your whole life around it and you will probably have a lasting impact on you and the world around you. The deeper a single practice goes, the more universal truth you will discover in it, and the more successful you are, the more you will branch into culture and society in general. If you “hit it big” it basically means now you have unlimited opportunities in whatever field you want to go into. Maybe not if you’re a 15 year old Soundcloud rapper, because you lack experience and seniority, but don’t you think that if LeBron James would become a meditation teacher, he would sell out all his seminars rather quickly?
- Once again I’m thinking about the magic around artists. Isn’t it the whole point to fill your life with practice you love, or need, and share that with others? And then, when that sells, your practice that you love or that heals you (and possibly both, unless, you know, rockstars, drugs, negative consequences, etc.) directly translates into your paycheck, enabling you to have even more of the life you want.
- I was thinking about my Tai-Chi teacher, to give a more humble example. I believe he teaches Tai-Chi full time. He really loves Tai-Chi and he clearly knows a lot about it and its implications. He will probably not become a millionaire or super famous, but he makes a living for his family, teaching and at the same time exercising his favorite practice, which is keeping him healthy and sharp. At the same time he is regularly surrounded by people who are supremely interested in his practice, and who draw inspiration, strength and health from his experience, by learning from him. I can hardly imagine a better life.