Thomas Mondel

#127 – Wasting Time Feels Awesome: The Key To A Happy Life?

By Thomas Mondel
December 3, 2014
6 Min read

November. Gone.

I never felt so unproductive. I never felt so empty and unmotivated. I even felt these weird depressive thoughts creeping in once again. It was terrible.

The whole last month I slowly dwindled down a slippery slope. I was going downhill in every area of my life. And I didn’t see it coming until it was too late.

I let myself go with my diet. I drank Red Bulls, ate at McDonald’s. I skipped workout way more than once. I often skipped several weeks. I didn’t work much. I actually did less than the bare minimum. It was awful and I regret doing so. Yet, I couldn’t pull myself out of this little hole I was digging myself.

It says, when you find yourself in the hole, stop digging. Yet, I kept going.

It (I) was a complete mess. It was like I didn’t even care anymore.

But why was that?

I thought about it for a while and I guess it had various reasons. One of them might be fear.

Well with all the unknown and random stuff life tends to throw at you, how could you not be afraid?!

I no longer knew why I was doing things, and then I (unconsciously) just stopped. I was missing out on my purpose, some real reason on why I am doing stuff? Any reason would have been great.

I was tired.

I was tired and burned out.

Why would you do something you don’t know the sense in doing it anymore? Everybody stops and feels “empty” once they no longer know their reason behind their actions.

And I was scared too.

I was scared I might end up at a place I don’t want to be. The thought of me working in a life-draining job once again frightens me. I was scared I might waste even more valuable years of my life doing stuff I regret doing in the future.

What if it does not work out the way I want it to work out?

I always try to tell myself that I am not scared at all. I am that fearless dude conquering the world. But it’s kinda delusional. Although I love saying it to myself. It helps me to keep going when I don’t feel like doing so (right now?)

But in some honest and ego-free moments I realize I am scared shitless.

My future scares me. Or better yet, the unknown which lies in the future frightens me. It’s funny. The unknown actually excites me as much as it scares the shit out of me. It’s a weird feeling.

I feel DRAWN TOWARDS IT and yet I feel terrified by it.

Whatever.

So I guess fear kinda conquered me in November. And I gave in.

But here comes the tricky part:

  • It actually felt REALLY GOOD to not be all strong and though for once.
  • It felt awesome to not care about my finances and how I can pay next months bills for once.
  • It felt great to just do whatever I want to do instead of controlling my thoughts, words and actions the whole fucking time.
  • It felt amazing to sleep 10 hours a day and not care about how much I got done today for once.

It was a dirty high. But I liked it.

I guess I now can understand why people do it all the time and become addicted to this sort of pleasure.

It’s easy. And tempting.

I can understand.

I can relate.

A different point of view: Is this even true?

This all might sound super dramatic to you, and I agree.

But it is not as bad as it might look like. I just realized how harsh I am with myself. Like all the time.

I simply hate violating my ABSURD standards I hold dear for myself. It freaks me out. And the stuff I wrote above is my (natural?) reaction to not living up to these expectations I have for myself.

Although I stated that “I have let myself go” and “skipped workout” and “didn’t work much”, it is actually a lie. I just didn’t do as much as I used to do the months before.

I just let go of my high standards for a while.

While I was usually working out 5 days a week for about 45-60 minutes, in November I now (only) did like 1-2 Freeletics workout sessions a week. Oh, and I did go for an hour of swimming with my best friend each Saturday morning at 7:00 AM too (honestly, who would skip on that?).

While I was usually avoiding carbohydrates altogether and sticking to my low-carb diet, I now screwed this idea for a month. I ate rice again. And bread. A funny month indeed.

While I was usually working 50-60 hour weeks, I did way less. I didn’t “work” that much, but I still got lots of important stuff done:

I don’t say this to sound cool. I’m not.

But I observed how I talk to myself. And how beneficial or harmful it can be. 

While it is somehow beneficial to give yourself a beat down once you violated your own standards, it can also be harmful if you don’t put it into perspective.

I used to love to give myself a hard time when I messed up. I still do. I called it “negative motivation”.

But maybe it’s time to recall what you DO have going on for in your life. 

Maybe it’s time to count your blessings for once.

Taking a step back.

Think about (and tell yourself) all the stuff you have unfair advantages over other people. Like stuff which makes you awesome. Because you probably have WAY MORE going on in your life than you at first are willing to appreciate.

It’s time to not be too harsh on yourself. At least for me.

It’s all good.

Thomas Mondel