Saturday, March 25, 2017

Doing the Wrong Thing that You Love to Do

It's close to 12am, this officially announce the end of my usual weekend before I have to return to my 5 consecutive mindful of workload with very little time for my own. Just like everybody else.

Such short duration always make working adults refuse to sleep early and prefer to stay up and do something relaxing and trying to forget about how much time left before we should get ready for bed.

But one thing got in my way: I need to complete filling up my time sheet for the last week before I got my very first message from my boss asking me to complete my time sheet even before I manage to reach the office to do so.

I knew I got a strong resistance to complete my time sheet as the first thing I do to start my Monday morning, so I figure that I should fulfill this duty before I end the weekend in my own term.

My laptop is on, same as my home laptop. I need to review the list of things that I had done for the week and fill in my time sheet accordingly. At the same time, I'm pretty hook up with an old game site that I found recently that allow me to download any old games for free.

Being an old timer like me, I always like to browse through infinite list of old games and see which one call back my good old memories. I spent some of my time checking the game that made up my childhood and wouldn't mind to waste some of my time now doing the same.

People like me who fall under Enneagram type 5, we prefer to make a good use of our time as much as we could. I love to watch movie, although I've been denying it for quite some time. It's like I feel like I'm not wasting my time enough, I also browse through sites for older movies that are good and I would love to broaden my insights from there.

Browsing through movies is a higher priority, so that I can move the movie screen to my another monitor and let the movie run as I browse through a long game list. When I have not decided which movie I should spend my precious night time for it, as I switch to the next page of the movie list, I switch back to the game list and continue browsing until the movie list completely loaded.

At one point, I feel like my time is being utilized well. Not until I forcefully remind myself that I have another laptop turn on, waiting for me to complete my time sheet duty before I can let the laptop rest for the night before going through what I have to go through the next day.

That actually make me feel bad, as you may have guessed. Conventionally, entertainment are desserts, whatever main job or task is the main meals that we should work on before we touch on the sweet stuff. I know as much as you that people have all the reasons to say that it's wrong to left your unfinished business behind and satisfy your freedom desire.

If you are as normal as myself, needless to say, we are pretty clear that we should work on the important and high priority thing before we started to do anything to increase our happiness/freedom gauge.

As confuse as it is, majority of us failed to understand why we choose to do things that our inner conscious told us that we would feel better doing so despite having some real deal to work on. Hope you learn that you are not alone if you ever face such unexplained mindful conflicts.

Here's the thing: we still choose to do that "wrong" thing.

When exams are coming up, we know that we should be spending time devouring whatever is available in the textbooks as soon as possible, but found ourself watching TV, playing games, reading our own favorite storybook, or anything that has nothing to do with what you suppose to do. Even if we stare right into the textbook, our mind is somewhere else. We have some tough time pulling ourself back into our first main priority.

What would you do when it's 12am and you knew that you should be lying on the bed preparing to shut down your mind and get a full rest so that you can face whatever comes to you on the next day, yet you found yourself starring at your computer, doing whatever that may be insignificant but your inner conscious give you strong reasons to keep you awake?

Many successful theories resolve such situations with self discipline. Trying to abstain ourself from activities and behavior that doesn't provide practical benefit to us. However, if you are fortunate enough to experience the real state of being true to your own inner voice, you knew that holding back your true feeling and force yourself to do things because that is the thing that you should do isn't the perfect answer for yourself.

Self conflict often being experienced as an individual and we constantly question ourself why we are not doing what we suppose to do. That eventually result in procrastination, self doubt, and decrease of self confidence in decision making.

Guess what? You really have to stop fighting with yourself and that inner voice that seems to be nothing but evil that persuade you to do what you are not suppose to do. Perhaps I should put it this way, there isn't really anything that you shouldn't do in your life, it's just that it may not be the right time to do it.

That doesn't mean it's wrong, not at all. As long as it's logical and reasonable enough for you to do it, don't think of it as a wrong thing. And stop doubting or blaming yourself for not focusing on your main priority. That is just a matter of self discipline, as mentioned before, but do not make the matter sounds really bad by thinking that it is wrong.

Somewhere in the corner of this world, there are many who do the exact same thing as you. But not everyone take this as a right or wrong thing, because they don't need to. When they need to make a decision between main priority and things that they want to do, it's just a matter of adjustment and acknowledgement.

In layman terms, it's about "how much" to do between the two. Say, you addiction of gaming is on, but it's 15 minutes until 12am, and you have to sleep at sharp 12. Sleeping is your main priority, and playing game is the thing you love to do.

Make your time precious, do what you love to do and make sure you enjoy it. When the time is up, tell yourself that you done it, and don't be greedy.

The next part is very important, you need to recognize that you did it. Most people did something, but they felt like they have not do anything at all and grief for the insufficient time spent on it, instead of appreciating the little thing that they able to do even though it's for short moment.

Having this small twist of your mindset able to make you feel that you had fulfilled your desire, and your day is not wasted for not doing things that are meaningful to your life.

It's important to focus on your priority, be it your inescapable duty or responsibility, but it's equally important not to ignore the little things that you love to do even though it may seems insignificant or unrelated to your main priority.

Even if it sounds wrong to others, be true to your inner voice. Recognize why you love them, and give yourself space to achieve them. This mindset can make your life so much more fulfilled and attain great sense of accomplishment other than just doing the so-call "suppose to do" things.
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