As we get old and put ourselves out there in the world, we have to spend a part of our life doing things that enable us or provide resources to continue with other parts of life. It's called work.
Often, these essentials end up taking a large part of our life. And sometimes, they remain the only things we do daily, totally forgetting about those set of activities which we originally desire for ourselves, things supported by the resources we earn from elsewhere.
For me, saying work is life is not acceptable anymore. I know what it is like to be engaged in work. I know what it feels like to push the envelope, to work on bringing something extraordinary to life, be a part of something much bigger than ourselves. I know what it feels like to experience that.
But, at the same time, I have also realized for myself that making work the most important thing in life is not a very optimal approach to living.
I consciously want to experience things around myself which are beyond my identity. Things which would not have any significant meaning attached to them. Things I could not write on my resume or on my yearly reviews. Things which wouldn't provide any return. Things which I would be okay to spend time and energy on at the cost of being a little mediocre at my work.
Here is a list of things I would allocate more time to in the future, in no particular order, as I get more comfortable internally with the above thoughts -
Reading more books.
Reading more blogs on what people are doing in tech.
Reading fiction and biographies.
Listening to music - particularly Piano.
Learning to play Piano.
Learning more Computer Science.
Taking recorded university classes.
Learning things I have no intention to work on. Like compiler design.
Automating things I do and creating tools for myself.
Painting
Writing blogs
Watching movies and TV series.
A trip to Everest base camp.
Planning a trip to Antarctica.
Listening to the rain.
Spending time sitting idle in sunlight.
Cooking
On some level, I feel sad and embrassed going through the above list - because there are so many basic items that made into this list - items that I should have been able to manage for myself by now.
But on another level, I am happy that I have matured in the last couple of years to have this awareness in the first place.
Kush