Two types of time

I decided not to waste time in an unaccountable manner. 

I choose what I do, and then I do it, in the constraints of the reality.

Of course, there is always a voice in the back of the head that says that “I want empty/free time”.

I have learned recently there does not seem to be such thing as “free time”. 

I have recognised there being two types of time:

1. Time when I do stuff that is either important or valuable, or at the very least pleasurable for me.
2. Time when I am wondering around the house like a hungry ghost, with growing anxiety inside me. 

Then there is the time that I sleep, but we are now more interested in the awake time. One should sleep well and long enough to have energy for the day, though.

Writer Robert Greene called these “alive time and dead time“. That is a very helpful way to see it. I don’t personally care so much for “success” or “productivity”. I don’t think that I even need to be learning something all the time.

Still, I have also experienced my own version of “dead time”. For me it is the time in the list item 2, the time when I am not interacting with anything, not giving myself to any cause, but rather floating between things, in indecision.

Even doing something stupid and instantly gratifying would be better than that! (Of course, only in ways that are not harmful…)

Another side of this coin is to have realistic expectations. 

Even when spending time wisely, it does not suddenly change the life from “dull” and “regular” to something fancy. Instagram-reality is not reality. If you are after success in the external world, it almost always takes a lot of work and time. 

Just do the things you really want to do and let the chips fall where they may.  

Choose your goals and desires wisely: choose to want things that are in your control, such as how exactly you will end up spending this day, and with what mindset you enter into it.