But This Is What I Always Wanted! How Can I Be Bored?!
Don’t freak out and fuel the fire. This is normal among all high-performers who downshift after working hard for a long time. The smarter and more goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be. Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf.
But there’s more! Retirees get depressed for a second reason, and you will too: social isolation.
Offices are good for some things: free bad coffee and complaining thereof, gossip and commiserating, stupid video clips via e-mail with even stupider comments, and meetings that accomplish nothing but kill a few hours with a few laughs. The job itself might be a dead end, but it’s the web of human interactions—the social environment— that keeps us there. Once liberated, this automatic tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder.
Don’t be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned the basics, though, it becomes clear that to be even a half-decent player requires some serious practice.
Don’t fret. The greatest rewards are to come, and you’re 10 feet from the finish line.
Frustrations and Doubts: You’re Not Alone
People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.
—JOSEPH CAMPBELL,
Once you eliminate the 9–5 and the rubber hits the road, it’s not all roses and white-sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as “What does it all mean?”) become harder to fend off for a later time. In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder—What the hell should I do with my life? It’s like senior year in college all over again.
Like all innovators ahead of the curve, you will have frightening moments of doubt. Once past the kid-in-a- candy-store phase, the comparative impulse will creep in. The rest of the world will continue with its 9–5 grind, and you’ll begin to question your decision to step off the treadmill. Common doubts and self-flagellation include the following:
Am I really doing this to be more free and lead a better life, or am I just lazy?
Did I quit the rat race because it’s bad, or just because I couldn’t hack it? Did I just cop out?
Is this as good as it gets? Perhaps I was better off when I was following orders and ignorant of the possibilities. It was easier at least.
Am I really successful or just kidding myself?
Have I lowered my standards to make myself a winner? Are my friends, who are now making twice as much as three years ago, really on the right track?
Why am I not happy? I can do anything and I’m still not happy. Do I even deserve it?
Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-as-success mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with. Even so, there is a more profound observation to be made.
These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100% alive and undistracted—in the zone. Chances are that it was when you were completely focused in the moment on something external: someone or something else. Sports and sex are two great examples. Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,81 these doubts disappear.
In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable that the “big” questions will creep in. There is pressure from pseudo-philosophers everywhere to cast aside the impertinent and answer the eternal. Two popular examples are “What is the meaning of life?” and “What is the point of it all?”
There are many more, ranging from the introspective to the ontological, but I have one answer for almost all of them—I don’t answer them at all.
I’m no nihilist. In fact, I’ve spent more than a decade investigating the mind and concept of meaning, a quest that has taken me from the neuroscience laboratories of top universities to the halls of religious institutions worldwide. The conclusion after it all is surprising.
I am 100% convinced that most big questions we feel compelled to face—handed down through centuries of overthinking and mistranslation—use terms so undefined as to make attempting to answer them a complete waste of time.82 This isn’t depressing. It’s liberating.
Consider the question of questions: What is the meaning of life?
If pressed, I have but one response: It is the characteristic state or condition of a living organism. “But that’s just a definition,” the questioner will retort, “that’s not what I mean at all.” What do you mean, then? Until the question is clear—each term in it defined—there is no point in answering it. The “meaning” of “life” question is unanswerable without further elaboration.
Before spending time on a stress-inducing question, big or otherwise, ensure that the answer is “yes” to the following two questions:
Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this question?
Can an answer to this question be acted upon to improve things?
“What is the meaning of life?” fails the first and thus the second. Questions about things beyond your sphere of influence like “What if the train is late tomorrow?” fail the second and should thus be ignored. These are not worthwhile questions. If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it. If you take just this point from this book, it will put you in the top 1% of performers in the world and keep most philosophical distress out of your life.
Sharpening your logical and practical mental toolbox is
The Point of It All: Drumroll, Please
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
—VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Holocaust survivor; author of
I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.
Each person will have his or her own vehicles for both, and those vehicles will change over time. For some, the answer will be working with orphans, and for others, it will be composing music. I have a personal answer to both—to love, be loved, and never stop learning—but I don’t expect that to be universal.
Some criticize a focus on self-love and enjoyment as selfish or hedonistic, but it’s neither. Enjoying life and helping others—or feeling good about yourself and increasing the greater good—are no more mutually exclusive than being agnostic and leading a moral life. One does not preclude the other. Let’s assume we agree on this. It still leaves the question, “What can I do with my time to enjoy life and feel good about myself?”
I can’t offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.
Learning Unlimited: Sharpening the Saw
Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.
—DAVE BARRY
To live is to learn. I see no other option. This is why I’ve felt compelled to quit or be fired from jobs within the first six months or so. The learning curve flattens out and I get bored.
Though you can upgrade your brain domestically, traveling and relocating provides unique conditions that
