Well hello there. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? At least for the usual cadence of this page.
The last time I wrote on here, it was a typical Monday back in mid September. An ordinary morning onwards to an ordinary day. But then during work I got a text from my brother saying our father’s new lease have arrived. In this crazy hot market where there’s a huge shortage of cars to sell, the dealership is only willing to hold the car for us for so long. We had to make the move quick.
So I spent that Monday evening at the local Toyota dealership finalizing the deal. This knocked my whole schedule off as I wasn’t able to do any of the things I typical do after work (the piano went unpracticed). No big deal, I thought: I’ll just make it up the next day.
Tuesday had different ideas, though. A new lease meant it was time to get rid of the old lease. What I had thought would be a quick transaction at the local CarMax have turned into a whole roundabout affair that’s still ongoing. I basically had to buy the Hyundai Tucson from Hyundai outright. Then I got to wait for the California DMV to send me the unencumbered title. Only after that can I sell the car to CarMax, or whoever is willing to give me a solid price that’s above my buyout.
I spent much of Tuesday evening sorting this out. The routine once again ruined.
Wednesday was not any better. I went to a Giants game for the first time this 2021 season. By the time I returned home it was nearly midnight. Forget reading for an hour; now my sleep schedule is off as well. No way I was going to wake up “on time” the next day and do my usual morning routine. Sleep is too precious to be usurped.
Thursday was also destined to go off track, because on Wednesday, I took delivery of the Dell monitor I had purchased. Didn’t had time to set that up because I was at the Giants game, so Thursday evening it is! It took a few hours, as I had to rearrange a few things. The 32-inch display utterly dominates my desk, so I had to move the MacBook Pro off to the side table. The Thunderbolt 3 cable that came with the display is just barely long enough, thankfully.
Well then, make up for all the lost time on Friday, right? Wrong. After work, I did my weekly visit to see my friend’s two kids. Then I came home to help my housemates do some last minute prep for their wedding ceremony the very next day. This was when I injured my thumb, derailing any piano practicing for the foreseeable weeks. Eight PM quickly became midnight, and so did any notion of catching up on my to-do’s.
Because Saturday was wedding day, and I was practically in amongst the festivities from the moment I got out of bed. It was a wonderful time, and the wedding itself was super lovely. Harborview Restaurant in the heart of the financial district is a spectacular location (just excuse the horrible traffic to get there). Multiple times throughout the evening, I marveled at how beautiful it all was.
Sunday was then recovery day. I slept in way later than usual, and excused myself out of my weekly visit to the parents. Tired and drained from the previous day, sunglasses and loose-fitting clothes were called for. I didn’t even bother putting on shoes. Needless to say, I did absolutely nothing that Sunday.
From the macro perspective, some would say that was a fairly good week, full of exciting new things and wonderful moments. And they would be right: it was an amazing week. My usual routine was completely out the proverbial window, and I simply went with the flow of events as they arrived. It was incredibly freeing, and surprisingly, I didn’t feel one bit of guilt in having skipped a week’s worth of studying, practicing, and reading.
So I stopped. That’s why you haven’t read a single word on these pages for three weeks.
I haven’t abandoned my hobbies and interests, mind you. I merely gave up on the regimen, Gone is the scoreboard and any time metric that I have to aim for every week. That’s a hamster wheel that will go on forever, unfulfilled. Instead, I’ve turned to the flow: if I feel like reading, I do. If I don’t feel like writing, I don’t. On some evenings after work I’ll simply do nothing, and that’s completely fine.
Paradoxically (at least to my mind), my anxiety levels have actually gone down. I don’t wake up on weekdays with the burden of the daily routine on top of me. Because it’s okay if I don’t get that one full hour of Korean study in. Should I feel like sleeping in a just a bit? That’s fine as well. Whatever the day brings, I accept.
It makes me wonder why I started the practice in the first place, of stuffing my outside-of-work hours with hobbies and productivity. Fear, most likely. Fear of dying into the emptiness without having done anything interesting. But isn’t that inevitable? Even the most accomplished person ends up the same as everyone else (eventually): tiny dust and atoms.
What I value most is no stress and no anxiety. For whatever reason, I seemed to how found it in the past few weeks. And it all started that mid September week of relative chaos compared to the usual. Funny how that works.