Is your hobby just an incentive to make you work more?

Do you get a salary on tax or do you pay taxes on your salary?

What stupid blog? Eh? No but really, it is but obvious the answer to above question.. *sighs* the thing is, it is not about salary or taxes. It is about life. Do you enjoy a little like you pay a portion of tax from the salary? Or your tax percentage is too high? Or maybe you find immense joy in toiling, that could be the case too. No doubt.

The Instagram post is linked here, if you wanna read the short version.

Lately, I wanted to speak about this, at least write it out, to see if someone else also finds himself in this zone or not and how do they tackle it? A lot of us go through this turmoil I think where we are so focused and motivated in towards the dedicated hustle and required tasks to be done, that we are bound to leave our hobbies aside, some are able to balance them in parallel. But for someone like me who has a multitude of interests in everything, and not just that but an aspiration to be good at things, it cripples you. Because you have so little time each day, and so little energy plus medical issues etc happen every now and then… Not bragging, but I love working out, feeling the heart beat, immersing myself into music as if the words and beats have intoxicated my mind, or being so mindful while trying to sketch(even though its poorest of the poor sketches), or maybe writing this blog and pondering about psychology and joining the dots of where I am lacking etc. .. I want to do everything, and I have been told it is not possible. And as I grow up or enter this early phase of corporate industry, a fear has entered my mind.

You can not do everything or you are not good enough to pull it off. Or maybe this is your cage, enter it, lock yourself in the work zone and live it with a smile. This is it.

I often find myself saying ” Hey, code for 1 hr more or maybe 20 mins more otherwise you would be left behind and then you can work on your hobbies. ” I enjoy coding too but not with so much pressure. Let it be, I put my head down and start working, and tell myself you can enjoy later. And like this at present – 18:12 8 August, I am writing this blog as a hobby work after 55 minutes of good cycling.

The issue is, I only pursue my hobbies after breakdown, or after it has become my second priority task. And by that time, it takes away my zeal to pursue the hobby. Second priority procrastination is a very smart way of tackling and not doing the real work, it gives you a sense of false productivity. Or sometimes even leaving the things and labeling them as boring when it starts to get difficult. I intentionally bore myself with not so stimulating things, to be able to grasp less obvious observations around me. Let me know if you wanna read more on this. And it has been going on since a long time.

I cannot balance it by increasing it’s frequency, because then my mind says you are not working hard enough, and finding an escape every now and then. That is the reason, I reduced my IG by this much amount. I hate scrolling now, because I know I could have done something so much better instead of this. But that hook always catches the fish(my 45 mins a day at least).

Demands of the Time or Phase of Life:

As a kid I used to hear my cousin saying he loves the drum set and he wants to learn it, its been a long time, I have never heard him saying that again. He is doing awesome in life, I admire him and learn from him immensely. But it hurts me when I don’t see him talk about his hobbies or enjoy the life more. I always aspired and wished to become like him, a successful charismatic personality man, but now that I have grown up a little, I find the balance of keeping my hobbies alive as the more important aspect of making the best of the time we have here.

Initially, as I am starting out this phase of life, it seems very obvious and meaningful to invest more time towards work and grind as much. However, I always wish to keep myself aware that there has to be a point to weigh the other side of see-saw more and alter this balance. I do not care about rat-race or the corporate crab mentality which is being boasted of so much these days. I do not wish to start or hold even some negative views in mind. But my point is, being self aware to:

• Keep myself aligned towards the core values of a good human.
• Not let it kill my desire for art, music, dance, fitness, kindness, gardening, nurturing other lifes etc.
• Not to fall in the incentive-work only ending up to climb the ladder that is not leading to the top I intend to or chasing the wrong goal post.
• Being responsible but not choking myself in the process. So, no girlfriend for a long time lol, barely have the energy and time to devote. Too much in love with myself.

Balance

The act of balance, I am I think yet to learn. I always read so many self help books, re-read their summaries on my own blog, try to make sense of things, or improve my focus, but I feel frustrated when time does not feel in my control. Like I wake up and then boom suddenly 3 hours have passed. I hate the feeling of not keeping your action in control of your awareness.

So anyways, the thing is, to get something fruitful from the time and effort you put in, I really need to get this consistency and I must manage the time to actually get things done, otherwise it would be impossible to die satisfied with the kind of ambitions I have. Balance, and act of respecting my hobbies as much as I respect work is something that requires self confidence and faith in oneself, the ability to tell yourself that leave it for now, you are able and well versed to get it done, for now, let us pursue that hobby or that enriched hour of life more.

So, self confidence, ability to take risk, management of half-hours , letting your work speak is the best way to get out of this loop. Also I do not like it when there used to be exams and one would study 7 days before it and score well and be a good student. I despise the agency of external event to get me doing the work done. The real self control is when one day before deadline or 1 month before deadline your work ethic and mannerism has no difference in the seriousness, (not that you stay as lazy as ever but as responsible as ever lol.) So that makes my act of balancing slightly tough. Plus I almost always put more than necessary in my plate. Even after college, I find myself making projects or doing courses. Like since I am not from CS branch in engineering, I am completing the 4 fundamental subjects from NPTEL to formally have the background and knowledge plus the lingo to get help me. Hence, it is not just that you do not know how to balance, be aware of how much you take up in your plate. And then be mindful of what you can afford with your utmost precious time.

Take only as much you can manage in your plate!

I find myself delaying my wish to draw or listen to music or play guitar so much that when I actually sit to do it, I barely have any interest or excitement to do it. That is where this alarm rings. No you are doing it wrong, you ought to give time to things you love. You cannot survive in the long run this way. Not just a voice but actually I cannot.

Is it okay to make gossips about that person? No. I don’t think I have the luxury or even the audacity to do that. I am totally inclined either towards what I wanna do, or just giving up and sleeping for a day in the corner of room.

This is challenging to balance. But its okay my dear readers. No matter how much situations try to put your fire off, as long as you are alive, you have to keep emanating the light of life within you. No need to fit in the wrong bracket of chasing money, hanging out in pubs or whatever your peer pressure forces you. Be so self aware and situationally aware that you catch the bad habit lurking in by its throat and throw it away.

Take away from the short blog:

• Be self-aware and contingency-aware as well. It could be a phase of life where you are required to put your head down and not ask questions. Play the big game. Paint the big picture.
• Learn to have faith in yourself and be a risk taker in at-least small things as your personal habits for your own good. Be courageous. Respect your hobbies a bit more.
• Be mindful of how much you take up in your plate and do justice to it, because otherwise you would end up only brooding and low-esteemed person.
• Expose yourself intentionally and deliberately to the things that make your life enriched with what aligns with your value system. Need not always be productivity oriented, just something that makes you live the moment more profound.

So…
That was it my dear readers, I really appreciate your efforts to read whatever I wrote. Congratulations ! you just read 1700+ words and I hope that you gained some beautiful insights of this mind.
Indeed it is a thought-book, this is all what I think whenever I am… existing.
Feel free to drop a message or follow me for no reason(?) at my Instagram. I would love to know if you felt connected or what sorts of thought you have. Also, you can help me by letting me know the topics you want to read more about.
I would love to receive your reviews and criticism in an ordered way so that I can improve accordingly.
DO WRITE TO ME LOVELY PEOPLE !
  

See you in the next post which is going to be very soon!!

Samriddh Singh
8 August, 2023