Moving Forward

This post is related to a previous blog post written about the pivot point that I am shifting towards which you can read it here

This year wasn't kind at all starting with earthquakes to a war hitting your doorstep soon (I live in Lebanon, war is happening in the south in Palestine) and from promises to disappointments, things didn't go as planned

Tried to shrug things off and move on but eventually it will take a toll and it did. With every single opportunity you wish to take, you face with certain setbacks and disappointment yet you keep enduring and moving forward. The annoying part is when you feel that you are stuck in your place feeling that you are not progressing forward while people around you are moving forward in their lives, I should take everything on social media by a grain of salt because we get to see the "best" out of people and not the worst hence we don't know what fucked up shit they are dealing with but you understand where I am heading towards

Along the fact that you have a job and obligations to take into consideration you are left with little time to go to the gym, socializing with people (new or old), and do the things you love

Is it worth it anymore to do any of the things that I have planned if nothing is working as expected? If you asked me this question at the beginning of the year I would have said yes but now it is not even worth it anymore

The main reason that it is not worth it anymore is because they are no longer something I enjoy aiming towards or doing but an obligation that I have to do even if I don't like it.

Take for example reading books like I enjoy sitting down and reading a good book but when you set a 52 book per year goal that reading this book becomes a chore than a leisure. I did this for 3 years and the reason behind: if I read 52 books a year then people would consider me an intellectual. It made sense when I was doing this goal because I was reading bullshit self help and business books but upon reading biographies and literature books that these books are more enjoyable yet take more time. People didn't care about the number of books I have read but the arguments and topics that I am able to discuss about which can be achieved with less than 10 bullshit books and all these productivity books helped me with nothing except for 1 book which is Oliver Berkman's book Four Thousand Weeks which I can vouch for that it will change your perspective about life (long story: this book made me realize that we will never be able to cover everything in life and reach "inbox zero" on everything). But from this goal that I wanted to be perceived as an intellectual but now I hate reading because it is no longer enjoyable as it used to be

Same thing with the podcast and blog, in 2016 I used to blog weekly and enjoyed it till I found out that you can make a living from it and this mindset made me hate it that I dropped all articles written and same thing happening for the podcast that in 2022 I enjoyed talking with people because I was able to speak with like-minded people but once I realized that I can advance the podcast towards building a business from it that it is no longer enjoyable but felt like a drag that I stopped recoding episodes (temporarily, I don't plan on shutting this down to be honest)

Bringing things back

I want to bring back the things that I used to enjoy doing, not out of any goal or anything but pure enjoyment that I don't mind wasting several hours obsessing over it doing it like a kid discovering legos and their endless possibilities

But as I am aging forward, I cannot take those obsessions and waste countless hours because I no longer have this luxury anymore even though I am 25 years old (reaching 26 end of this year) but I wish I have the care-free phase when I was 18 which I can stay all night writing code and enjoying the process without worrying about anything. Now I worry about getting a paycheck to pay rent, support my parents, and save what I can for bad days

I have certain responsibilities that I have to take into consideration which is costing me my mental health, you get questioned by people around you: when you will meet someone and start something together? When you will buy an apartment to settle in? Are you willing to buy a new car because yours is old? (For context here: I drive a 1999 Honda Accord and it works, it has less than 100K mileage and dad left it parked for 8 years which I fixed it and driving it daily) Then they tell you to do what it takes to get those before you reach 30 otherwise you are a failure (no pressure at all)

Those things require capital and lots of time to work on, this is the main reason I wanted to start something on my own: to gain capital from doing work at this small startup to buy those things and feel that I am not missing out in life. I am good at programming hence it makes sense to capitalize on this skill and capitalize on other elements to boost myself like the blog and podcast where I can showcase that I am good at this skill thus I have certain authority to claim that I am knowledgable in this field

Little did I know that turning the things I love into a business made me hate it more than anything in this world, like now I hate writing code on the side because I no longer have the enthusiasm of writing code out of obsession but out of necessity and obligation

Sure I might be getting capital to reach those goals but it is costing my own mental health big time that I no longer enjoying anything in my life, you get to fool yourself saying that you are doing yourself and your future children a favor by making your lives better in the future but in the meantime deteriorate your mental health to the point of depression and frustration, there is no return from this decision once taken to full heights thus explains why we are a generation that relies on stimulants to keep pushing forward in this hustle culture and frame ourselves for not being productive where in reality we might be limited to a certain capacity unit that society claims it as "not enough"

Moving forward

From this post and forward that I am moving forward in this life, I am no longer aiming towards capitalizing things for the sole purpose of reaching those goals that society state that you should have to "fit in". I want to enjoy living life and being happy, nothing lasts forever in this world no matter what we do thus let us live it while enjoying it and not in a state of misery

Moving forward in my life that I want to do the things that bring me joy, the main objective is no longer about getting money but instead doing meaningful things in life that bring meaning to this world.

Money will come eventually but I want to enjoy the process out of love, not out of fear of missing out in my life. I want to be happy in my life for once and not waking up pissed that I have "those things to do"

I don't regret anything at all, sure aiming to buy your own apartment and finding someone to settle are important things that we cannot ignore but cannot fret about every single day thinking on how to achieve them. Let's live life day by day, eventually things will sort itself out when the time comes and leave it to God to decide how my fate will turn out

I want to go back to the state of reading books for leisure, go back doing podcasts out of enthusiasm of meeting like-minded people, go back to writing things I love doing, go back to writing algorithms and functions out of love of the craft and trying to break new barriers, and start the company out of making people's lives better and not only for the sake of money

It will take for it to come back naturally after the damage that I have inflicted on myself, to rediscover the things that I used love doing. It is going to be difficult to reprogram myself to take time to do these things than finishing things off as fast as possible, although I want to play the long game but I think this thing will take much longer than I have expected

Going to take time to reflect on my life with writing on my journals and proceed with doing the things I love doing, might ditch social media for a long time after realizing that they are causing me stress and sucking time/attention on useless things