In the past few years I’ve gone from relaxing-by-consuming to relaxing-by-creating. Whereas I used to go, “I’m bored and tense, let’s watch stuff on youtube”, now I go, “I’m bored and tense, let’s write!” (or solitude/meditate/etc.) And I’m glad I’ve made the switch, because it’s so much more enjoyable— Creating stuff gives me energy and ideas! Meanwhile, consuming stuff drains my energy into this slow emptiness, and makes me feel like I’m trapped going in small little circles:(

changing

Until a few years ago though, relaxing-by-consuming was my default. I suppose I just didn’t know: I had just never worked on big independent projects before (outside of Minecraft, at least). And even when I did eventually discover how much I enjoyed creating stuff— namely, writing, my behavior didn’t automatically shift such that whenever I had spare time I would then think “I could write something right now!”.

A few years ago I noticed that inconsistency and found it odd. So I tried writing first thing every morning for a bit, and I enjoyed that. After a few months something must have clicked because I naturally began to write (or etc.) whenever I had spare time. It’s become pretty addictive, frankly.

(And I didn’t expect my writing to consume my life, but it kind of has? But that’s maybe a topic for another post.)