Week 7: Happiness?

Warning: This week’s post ended up being all over the place, so might not be too coherent, but the process of writing all the topics gave me too much to throw any of it away, but now you are warned 😉

Are Structure, Routine, and Ambition killing Happiness?

Above is an open question and not a conclusion, as I honestly don’t know, but lately, I’ve been reflecting on how I spend my time and why I spend it the way I do.

Those who know me, know I’ve always been very structured and leaving little to chance. In my previous job that was absolutely key as there was so much to do that it made me on the one hand successful, but on the other hand, slowly contributed to the burnout.

So when I left back in October and wanted to start anew, I knew that at the start I should experiment a lot and try new things and different ways to do them… I did that and while odd in the beginning it was liberating.

But slowly I got a handle on things and the new normal started to form (see Week 5 blog post for more), and with that came structure; perhaps a bit too much structure…

Hardest boss I ever had…

I’m now my own boss in everything, and this boss has an enormous ambition level!

  • Make an awesome Tower Defense Mobile Game and make it a success!
  • Become in you best shape of your life!
  • Do it all while being mindful to yourself and others!

So I do not have a “real” job anymore, but in the last few weeks, the structures and goals in place are resulting in me “working” all 7 days a week toward the above goal, and doing little more than the following every day

  • Morning Routine
    • Wake up @ 07:00
    • Meditate
    • Morning Run
  • Work (Unity Game Development)
  • Fitness
  • Evening Routine
    • Evening Walk
    • Meditation
    • Read
    • Sleep @ 22:00

I’m not saying that above is not nice and privileged that I can do this instead of work, but I’m unsure if this much structure is not killing spontaneity and true happiness???

As an example; even in my busy life before the change I saw TV series and Movies from time to time; something that has not happened in the last 1.5 months of freedom because there was “no time” on the schedule for it… (I am making it a bit black and white here; I have participated in entertainment, but just in a different way because “free time” and “work time” are so mixed up).

Looking back to my leaving announcement on LinkedIn I wrote this:

“So I need to re-balance; I need to find the spark again; I need something that consumes me less…“

Well, I for sure re-balanced something, and I am in pursuit of the new spark (Unity Game development is a good candidate for sure), but “the nature of me” might have thrown the balance scales off to something that is equally unbalanced, and consuming me too much…

What is happiness?

Yes, I know; All the above is 1st world problem, but it truly is a balance, and It is easy and privileged “not to work” but is it happiness?… what is happiness in general? If you google it you get this?

But my logical brain is not happy with that statement; So am I happy enough?; How to check? What is my happiness score and how do I compare to others (because of cause my ego wants to rank high)?…

This article is a good try at least to answer that and a recommended read, but being a subjective topic I will never get my “Score”.

My “worst-case scenario thinking” brain ruins everything!

I mentioned it in passings before, and people that know me best, know I have a severe case of “worst-case scenario thinking” and while I will explore this topic in a future blog post, I do believe at it is one of my great “enemies” in the pursuit of happiness, especially when it comes to social and relationship…

Peaked too early?

This one might be odd, but I sometimes “wish” I was in my 60s and soon to go on retirement, as I could look back on what I have accomplished (success, money), and now start my retirement “happy” that I would be done “performing”… But I’m not in my 60s, I’m in my 40s and there are 20 more years till I should think this way, and I find it scary that I need to come up with 20 years more of “brilliance” (yes; the ego sure does not find average good enough!) of contributions to some community like I did in the SAP Business One community… I try to convince myself that this is not that important, but in weak moments fail to do so.

Week 47 Experiment: A week without plans!

So I started this post with a question: “Are Structure, Routine, and Ambition killing Happiness?“, and to “find out”, I’m going to try and leave structure, routine, and ambition behind (as much as possible) for the week 47, and instead try and live these days on pure desire and “wish” instead of need on everything, and see where that takes me… Gonna be interesting to see if that is possible and where it will lead me to…

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Appendix: Here are the new and previous goal results