Is there value in being productive?

When I finished medical school there was nothing I identified with more than being a doctor. It was everything. It gave me my self-confidence, it created a conversation piece, I dropped hints about it when meeting new people and it was my excuse for however I was living my life at the time.

Inherently I’m a sloth. I want to stay home, eat pizza, drink beer and watch Netflix. I don’t want to practice medicine, I don’t want to brush my teeth and I definitely don’t want to fucking floss.

Professionals are driven

I assume a professional is someone who has a career as opposed to a job and it’s someone who spends a significant amount of time studying or developing that particular career.

To get through medical school we had to be planners, methodical about execution and hard on ourselves in order to stay on track.

Is it that we already possessed those characteristics and then feed into them by pursuing higher education or professional careers? Or maybe we just develop these habits and skills along the way.

I can’t imagine that after years of being type-A we can just transition to being someone chill/mellow, happy with status quo.

The artsy, mellow person

I’m sure my imagination makes up a lot of the facts when I meet someone new, assigning them a lifestyle which may not be the reality.

Sometimes, I meet that artsy type, looking a little hipster, not really caring about their appearance, seeming comfortable in their shell with a healthy detachment from society’s expectations.

I then imagine that person with no worries, no fears, swaying happily in the wind. I’m sure the truth is closer to them having some of the same hurdles as a professional, placing similar pressures on themselves with grand desires for future achievement.

I want to be a sloth

Okay, here I go… I want to be a sloth. I want to do what I want when I want with little worry about consequences, or just enough worry to not create unnecessary chaos.

I want to forget the goals, delete my to-do list, be happy with things just as they are and make no attempts to change.

I can’t tell you how scary that feels. I mean, it’s like giving up on life, though it’s not that at all. I feel like by not pushing myself I won’t serve a purpose, I won’t have a cause and I’ll just exist.

What’s so bad about just existing, not always producing, doing the things I want to do when I want to do them. Sure, I would have to generate some resources in order to cover expenses but for the most part, pizza, beer, and Netflix don’t cost that much.

Forget the core strengthening exercises, skip the morning dips, nix the yoga and let my body just do what it’s supposed to do.

Guilt

Guilt, you little bastard! Always there, always creeping in and constantly pushing me from what I want to do to what I should be doing.

It’s not something inherent, I know that. I wasn’t born with it, it seeded in my mind sometime in high school. Guilt is a little voice, a magnetic force, and a slap in the face at times.

Guilt is hard to say no to but it feels so fucking good to tell guilt to fuck off and go against it. I feel that way every time I plan a big day and just say fuck it, order a pizza and stay home watching YouTube videos.

I wonder if I stood up to my guilt feelings and intentionally did the opposite whether I would eventually find a middle ground. Or would guilt just slowly creep back in disguised as some other pressure?

Go big or stay home

Most of the time I have the urge to learn more, write a ton, create, build, expand and conquer. Then there are occasional moments, often lasting a couple of days, when I get a glimpse of what it would be like to just be passive.

It’s not hard to resist these durations of passivity. I often feel less creative, however, and it’s necessary to plan more and force execution.

During these times, I ponder if there is anything wrong with just lounging, reading and watching movies and going for walks to keep my body from breaking down – essentially, giving in.

I would even be okay with something more regimented, involving exercise, a healthy diet, reading interesting books and socializing with friends.

My other self wants to build up a few businesses, learn a ton of new skills, make a huge network of friends, live somewhere else for a few years and start a new career.

Maybe the balance is somewhere in-between and yet it’s hard to ignore glimpses of when it seems ridiculous to want to achieve all that shit.

I want to be an amazing doctor that’s known for his skills.

I want to be a successful entrepreneur.

I want to have a ton of money and be known to be wealthy.

I desire some controlled fame.

I want my blog to be the shiznit.

I want to have multiple income streams.

I want my name on books.

I want women to be attracted to me.

But I feel like I keep having to beat it out of myself. It’s what I want but not what I want to become. If that makes sense.

How to feel Productive?

It’s important to be productive for society as a whole. Some folks birth a couple of fetuses and make their whole lives all about the kids – in a way they are productive, it takes a fuck-ton of work to raise kids.

When there are no kids and no family then I would need to find something outside of that. Maybe pets? Is it a purpose that defines productivity?

I feel productive when I write these posts but maybe I feel productive because I am keeping busy.

Why am I “productive” if I purchase a rental property? Am I not just keeping busy? Dunno, figuring that out still.