Time

The main goal of the academic field of economics is to study how humans satify their unlimited wants and needs given finite resources. Since I’m human, I have to do this as well when it comes to time, especially now as I have far less time than I used to have.

Ever since I started working, I’ve underestimated how much free time I had while I was chronically unemployed. In those days, I could wake up whenever, watch hours of YouTube videos, play even more hours of video games¹, read books, watch movies, doomscroll, listen to podcasts, binge watch multiple TV series, try cook, take a walk, and at times, do productive things like program and blog. Now that I work, I have far less time to fuck around.

Work takes 10 hours of my day between commuting, getting ready and the actual work. Sleep takes an 8 hour chunk, I spend an hour eating and half an hour of family time². This leaves 5 and a half hours to try and do all the things I could easily when I had thrice the time. It would be less if I had to do more domestic labor. Making things worse is that those few hours are incredibly tiring as it lies during the time I wake up and when I get back from work when I’m really tired.

Fitness and career development are important, but when video games are fun, I don’t progress my career.

Games are fun but they need a lot of effort compared to movies.

Movies and video games are cool, but they need a lot of attention compared to YouTube videos.

There are a lot of YouTube videos I want to watch from amazing creators (with many more I haven’t discovered) that I’m always playing catch up³. YouTube is kinda passive so I can doomscroll.

Doomscrolling never starts out that way. It always starts with some slight curiosity on some tech influencer. Hours later, I’m suddenly unable to look away from a vile comment section.

In short, there’s so much stuff to go through. Even If I get productive, I have hundreds of posts in the drafts and just as many links saved to go through. There’s clearly not enough time to go through it all, and I doubt there ever will. Even if I did, what’s the point? Entertainment is valuable sure, but can I truly say I’m being entertained if I’m watching a YouTube sketch comedian at 3x speed, blasting away meticulously planned stylistic pauses? Probably not.

All this has made me realized that time is finite and I need to have a guiding philosophy to figure it out. If I don’t, I might end up in some strange places. As that cat told the girl, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.