On the need to feel productive
I have a confession to make. Whenever I have free time I feel guilty.
I tell myself this is likely a common cultural phenomenon where we're pushed to make goods all the time. I feel like not doing so is immoral, and a flaw in my own personality.
But I have no real way to know if other people feel the same. Do they also tend to feel restless if they don't have an aim to work towards? Can they just not do anything and feel good about it?
If I look within myself I notice that this feeling is composed of two different tributaries: the lesser one is the feeling that not doing anything is somehow morally wrong. And the most pressing one (which is possibly just another facet of the first) is that if I have precious free time and I don't do anything then I'm wasting it.
I then ask myself "am I really wasting it if I want to do nothing?", which is invariably followed by the much more insidious question "do I really want to do nothing?".
I don't know. I've even made a list of the things I like and enjoy so that when I have free time I pick one of the items to keep myself entertained. But still my time frequently feels empty, unsatisfying. My mind questioning whether I'm taking advantage of the opportunity as much as I should.
I've always associated this feeling with the need to be productive, and feeling like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time. And, I think, therein lies the problem: I don't have any metric to know how worthwhile an activity is.
Reading the last sentence again it almost seems silly. Isn't your enjoyment of whatever you're doing enough validation for the value of an action? I guess it is. I have the tendency to get in the way of my own happiness by wondering if what makes me happy is praiseworthy or not.
Again I see it. Who am I looking to receive praise from? Is it my family? Friends? Internet strangers? Is it myself?
As my therapist would say, "you need to get out of the way and let yourself just enjoy what you're doing instead of second guessing".
Right now my thoughts are telling me "how can I say that, when many people in the world don't have any free time at all, and many have much worse living conditions than you?". Which only makes me feel worse. It feels petty to think and write about this, but I can't do anything about them, and surely my appreciation of my own time won't affect them in any way. Still, thinking about others does help put things into perspective.