Week 8: Want vs Planned

Last week I wrote about happiness, and as part of that I mentioned that I might be planning too much instead of doing what I truly want, and if that might reduce my overall happiness. For that reason, I mentioned that my Weekly goal was to have no goals and do everything on pure desire/want for a week.

While the past week was perhaps not the most “normal” with, more than normal, amount of social activities (Bank Meetings, Lectures, Coaching, Boardgaming and even a Diamond Wedding in the Family), I think it still gives value to dedicate this post to the out on what happened more or less

Remember also to enjoy it…

On 3 separate occasions this week, I was directly reminded of this by someone (most of them not reading the blog)… What are freedom and a privileged situation worth, if you spend all your time planning… I often blame others for going on vacations that they overplan too much (“scheduling every minute of the vacation to see the site, etc.”) resulting in them needing relaxation after the vacation (aka a vacation from the vacation), but reflecting, It seems that I do just the same, but with my life… The past week with no plans showed glimpses of that, and indicate to me that I need to go with the flow a bit more and enjoy it instead of thinking of it as a checkmark, that can be checked off… (Thank you to the people that reminded me over the week🙏)

It was a long week; in a good way

So now that the past week is over, I feel it was a lifetime ago since it was last Monday, sitting and writing about Happiness. If I did not have a calendar I could have sworn that some of the things during the week feels like 2-3 weeks ago.

Normally something feeling long is a bad thing, but here and now it just feels like “a good long week where lots of nice and interesting things happened”. I think it was because the week was so varied; it did not feel like “another week doing x,y,z…”. It just feels good and there is a desire for the same/more going forward.

The week in summary (what was more and what was less)

Here are the changes to the usual stuff I do, when desire controls over planned and reflection on the various topics.

Fitness

Even acting on pure desire, the want to be active is still very much in place. Running every morning is a delightful routine (it feels so good after) and the perfect start of the day for me. I’m slowly ramping up the length of the runs (still keeping a watchful eye on my knees), but the feeling of being in better shape overall is all worth it.
The same goes for walks, which I do way more often now (on average I run/walk at least 10k each day) [I walk instead of bike/bus to all activities I need to do if they are less than 5k from my home]… Helping with the motivation is also my Apple Watch that I bought purely for Run and Sleep back in October, but I now wear it all day… It gently reminds me to stand up from the computer and closing the rings has become a joyful “goal” each day 🙂 I can strongly recommend it despite not seeing the big deal about smart watches for years…

Sleep

Sleep during the week is overall better (average is finally over 7h), with one low hour-amount day… As it is getting colder and darker outside I’ve started to sleep a bit later (going later to bed so still the same amount of hours) so running is not too cold and in complete darkness.

Mindfulness

I’ve scaled back active mindfulness back a bit only doing 10 min instead of 15 each morning/evening and most focusing on breathing exercises as that type of meditation works best for me it seems. I see mindfulness as something to incorporate as much as possible in regular activity and direct meditation as a tool to overcome occasional stress or “too many thoughts”… Do think I will soon revisit my mindfulness book, to see if there is a “next step” in the practice, or things are good as they are.

Food and Weight

Pure want vs food made me realize that my meals and choices had become a bit too samey. So during the week I mixed it up a bit more and indulged a bit more from time to time; though still staying away from fast food! The result has been nice experience-wise and has resulted in no change on the scale (good but also bad wanting to achieve a better BMI). The week has thought me to not be so strict that it ruins the good food experience, but also that it is one of my weak spots that I need to somewhat keep a check on… I might experiment with intermittent fasting (done so in the past with great success), but also incorporate a “cheat day” to get a better balance toward the goal.

Work (Game Development)

This one is a bit odd. At the start of the week, not having a schedule for game development made me not do it at all for the first 3 days (the extra social activities during the week also contributed). At first, I got a bit discouraged that Game development might not be my new passion after all since “I don’t want to do it”. However, after the 3 days, I began to have a “longing” to work on the game at odd hours (often afternoon/night), and when I first sat down based on want, I sat there for a longer time than my planned 4 hours a day. Last day of the week (Sunday), for the first time I think I was truly “in the zone” of game-development feeling so much joy. So It seems the fixed game-development schedule is not working at the moment and I should react purely on desire here (seems to produce roughly the same amount of progress, but at odd hours and in bursts instead).

On top of game development, I also think it is soon time to experiment with my second passion; Agile Development Processes… More on that in later posts…

Social

While still in Introvert and social stuff is “tiring”, the extra of it this week really felt great and gave more variation to the week, so I will go the extra mile and out of my way to try and “dare” to participate in more social stuff… So far I have only been positive despite being “scary” and out of my comfort zone… Small steps…

So that was everything for this time… I’m going to run this week the same as the last, but only write about it, if the is a dramatic change; else this is a new way forward that fit me best at the moment

Have a nice week everyone and thank you for all that follow my ramblings here…
(I’m still overwhelmed that so many find value in what is just “therapy writing” for me) 😉