Taking it SLOW in a FAST-PACED society

For a long time I lived my life as if I was in a constant hurry. I always had the feeling that I never had enough time. Quite funny, because I already had that feeling BEFORE I had children. Now that I do have children, I have a greater understanding of this feeling than EVER before! At this point in my life I realize that I had PLENTY of time before, but I just never saw that. 

Not anymore experiencing pleasure

At this point in my life I have my full-time job as a WMS support engineer (WMS stands for Warehouse Management System), I have a family to take care of and 4 pets (which includes 2 dogs and 2 cats), I have several hobbies like creating YouTube videos and playing video games (yes, I'm back at it every once in a while) and I exercise regularly (and with regularly I mean around 4-6 times a week), doing high repetition calisthenic exercises only, like for example military style burpees, push-ups and squats and several ab exercises. However, I realized something very recently. 

The thing is, in my search to a more productive life to get as many things done in a day as I possibly can, only 1 thing really happened after I implemented several strategies I've found during that search - and that one thing is that this “productive lifestyle” took away the biggest part of my pleasure in almost everything I do, simply because I stopped taking the time properly for those things and now, since I’ve decided to take my YouTube channel to another level, I AM taking the time for things, and that feels REALLY GOOD. 

I am taking the time to properly script my videos, to film some B-roll footage, to edit the way I like to edit my videos, to play a video game every once in a while (at this moment AC: Valhalla on my Shadow PC 👉 USE REFFERAL CODE WESJGFCT), to spend time with my family and the list goes on and on. And regarding YouTube - I'm so grateful for having all of you here watching my content, and the fact that I got monetized is also something I'm super grateful for, but like I used to say to get OBSESSED about something - I realized that's not for me at this stage of my life. 

Being obsessed

I was very obsessed about my YouTube channel for many months. Every bit of free time I was checking my analytics, preparing videos, responding on comments and comment on other channels. When I was working out, I tried to work out as fast as possible because I felt a lot of pressure. Pressure that I needed to work on my YouTube channel (even when I recorded my workouts). There’s ALWAYS something to do on or for YouTube when you have a YouTube channel. I am sure there are a lot of creators who feel the same way and for a long time I thought that being obsessed about something was the ONLY WAY to be successful. 

Yes, maybe being obsessed got me to the point that I got my channel monetized, but it was a BATTLE, ladies and gentlemen! It was hustling and struggling, and it damaged my personal life to a certain degree. It’s definitely not something I want to happen again and yes, I understand that we have to make sacrifices to achieve certain goals, but I think it’s important to find a sort of balance in that process. Now here’s a problem: I just said the word BALANCE. 

Balance

If there’s something in this world I am TERRIBLE at, it’s balance. When I am doing something, I like to go all-the-way! And when I really love doing more than 1 thing, I want to go all-in in all those different activities, and unfortunately that’s not possible with the way my life is organized. The 24 hours in my day are mostly occupied and there’s 1 benefit to this 👉 I am NEVER bored. Really, never. And regarding the way my life is organized - besides my full time job and giving my family the attention they need, I don’t have a lot of time left! Instead of being obsessed about something and trying to squeeze as much as possible things to do in that little time frame before I go to bed, I am just taking it a LOT more easy. Whatever I feel like doing, I’m doing and I hope to be blessed with another day tomorrow. 

How did I try to become more productive?

OK, back to productivity. You know, I had phases where I tracked EVERYTHING I did, up-to-the-minute. No joke! I used activity trackers like “aTimeLogger”. I tracked how much time I spend working, sleeping, eating, traveling, cleaning, how much time I spend with friends and family and a lot more.

If I found a part of the outcome from tracking my day inefficient, I went looking for ways to tackle that. I searched on YouTube how to become more productive, started listening to productivity podcasts and audiobooks while I was driving from A to B - leaving no minute to spend in a useless way. Also, I started reading all kinds of articles about productivity on the internet and at one point it was totally CONSUMING my life. My only goal was to get things done. 

The feeling of not being productive

I stopped chilling with loved ones because I felt I wasn’t being productive. I spent a lot of time in the woods, trying to clear my head. However, deep down inside I didn’t feel free at all and clearing my head was the last thing I did. I spend my time there mostly thinking about my YouTube channel and creating content. I stopped meeting people because “I’m too busy!”. I stopped playing video games to fix up my dopamine levels and to do what I thought that mattered, but the funny thing is that I didn’t experience pleasure in playing video games anymore BECAUSE I WAS FEELING UNPRODUCTIVE. 

Another example, is that before I was able to chat literally for HOURS with my partner. We were having so much fun during those conversations, and we were also having real deep conversations. Unfortunately, I have gotten to a point that I stopped taking the time for that as well, as I felt I needed to “get to work”. “Work more”, “Do more”, “You’ll never be successful in life if you don’t”. You know, I really don’t care anymore… You know what success means to me? Feeling happy and experience pleasure in the things I do. And constantly chasing, and doing, and pushing, and making myself completely crazy in the process is NOT making me happy. So, there’s 1 thing to do in order to solve that - just take it easy and that’s exactly what I’m doing!

Taking my time

That feeling of being in a constant hurry - I completely allowed myself to feel like that. We should remember that WE are in charge, and therefore I decided to simply take a step back. 

I’m done when I’m done with whatever I’m doing and if that’s not today, then maybe tomorrow, or next week or whenever it may be. The BIG benefit of taking your time, is that you can see the beauty of something and really experience it the full way. 

Imagine yourself going outside taking some photos: when you're in a rush, you'll overlook things. When you take your time to observe and examine your environment, allowing yourself to be creative and experiment with different points of view, lenses or filters or whatever it may be, you'll be surprised what you capture. At this moment I feel the same way about life.

Fast-paced society

We are living in such a fast-paced society where, to me, it looks like we’re all in a rush, and I’m sure that I am not the only one who’s having that experience. Most of us have a constant flow of information coming towards us. Our smartphone is buzzing all day long, and we don't hesitate to take our smartphone out of our pocket to quickly check what's happened in the world of social media. 

FOMO

Some people even suffer from something called FOMO, which stands for Fear Of Missing Out. This is a overwhelming urge to check your phone to make sure you don't miss out on anything. The exact definition by the way which I found on Google was "anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media." We must not forget that social media is designed in a way to keep us hooked. Our smartphones are designed that way too - they really go hand-in-hand and I must admit - I was suffering from it as well! CONSTANTLY checking what was going on on my YouTube channel, checking those notifications, subscriber count, analytics, comments, how many views, and to be honest - it really messed me up for a while. 

Life is unpredictable

Since I am taking my time for everything I have noticed that my personal screen time is a lot less than it's used to be and that I can experience pleasure again like I used to. Life is SO unpredictable and therefor I think it’s SO IMPORTANT to take our time. To allow ourselves to enjoy as much as possible. When living in a rush that’s just not possible (at least, for me it’s impossible). We don’t know if we are blessed with a new tomorrow, we only have this current moment. I now feel like: If I love and respect my life, I should take my time and take it easy. 

How to take it slow in a fast-paced society

The best way to do this, is like I said earlier - remember that WE are in charge, and we can decide whatever we want to decide. There’s no need to feel powerless, because we have the power we need. We just need to take the time to find out where it’s hidden sometimes. In my case, there’s actually nothing to worry about when I’m taking things slow. 

If you are not sure how to slow down in a fast-paced society, ask yourself what is the worst that could happen. I realized at some point that I really don't care if I miss something someone else is doing. And that it doesn't matter at all that I don't immediately open a notification to see what has happened. Also as far as my YouTube channel is concerned - nothing changes the situation when, for example, I check how many subscribers I have 50 times a day. When you realize such things and experience the freedom when you are not doing all of this, you will suddenly start living differently. It doesn't matter what someone else is doing, it's about your life and how you feel. The people who know me a little know that I am a person who changes my mind a lot, but I really have to admit that taking it slow works like some kind of medicine. A medicine that restores peace. You have to admit that true peace is something that seems increasingly impossible these days. At least this is what I experience.

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