DIMM003: Producing Happiness
I am a person that is attempting to become fully self employed. There's this little thing that regular people say about being self employed with a romantic wistful sigh saying that, "you get to be your own boss." This implies some kind of freedom, and while it is quite free, this phrasing is inaccurate. If you get to go to disney world, you also could decide to not go to disney world and you'd be just fine. I think that getting to do something implies that you could choose to not do it.
I like to think of it more as, "you have to be your own boss." There's no choice about it. You are the singular person who must get the work done, there's no "getting to do" anything. This is, like the definition of what being self employed is, if you are looking to someone else to tell you what to do, you aren't self employed anymore.
Many people in this situation, including me right now, feel like their self employment takes over their entire life, and feel guilty for any time you aren't directly trying to produce wealth for the company. For a lot of people this is fine when you are trying to get your business off the ground, but starts to get very exhausting in the long term.
I personally am always thinking about the next video I could be writing, or some short video I want to make or edit or coming up with ideas for. Even on days that I was so sick with covid that I could barely think, I still felt guilty that I wasn't doing any work.
I'm feeling this as I write this. Like I need to so something today to feel like I'm not a complete failure, but also today is my day off and I have been working a normal amount the other two days, so I should relax, but I really should do something, but I should relax, but I should do something, but i-
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I've been trying to cope with this dilemma for a while, but its really hard to do that when I want something to get done quicker. Like this video that I am making right now (as of 8/14/24) has already had the VO recorded and edited, already had parts filmed, now I just need to film a bit more, then edit the video. Oh its so close and I'm so excited let me just throw my whole schedule out the window and finish this as soon as possible who cares about my mental health, the silly minecraft drama video is almost done!
There's a concept in economics called a false economy which is basically an action that seems to save money in the short term, but will actually cost way more in the long term than another option. I think that overworking yourself is a false economy for your life.
Working produces money,
taking a break produces happiness.
I find that being "productive" doesn't mean that you are always working, it means that you are always producing something, whether it be money or happiness. When you are in this shit phase of not being able to work, but simultaneously wanting to work, you don't produce either.
I think that a good way to think about it is to realize that taking a break is productive, but it doesn't produce what normal work does. I'm sure that my advice to "just think about it more" is super helpful to all of you.
So I intentionally plan days off into my week (I've been liking the weekend wednesday strategy) like what today is supposed to be.
I really tried to work on the video today, but my body wouldn't let me do it. I kept trying and it just wouldn't happen, I kept gliding off of the work and would magically end up on Twitter somehow.
Sure, I could have locked myself down, caged myself away and told my brain that the only thing it was allowed to do was work on this video, but then the work would have probably been shit and counterproductive.
Obviously I don't have the solution, but writing this blog today has made me feel a bit better about this whole thing. It still hasn't gone away, but I feel less like today I was a complete failure. Like not working today will make tomorrow more productive (is what I keep telling myself).