Hi everyone, again… long time no see 🙂 Manuel sent me a few days ago the video “How to survive the age of productivity”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDbvDzkk7xI by Patrick Mainstone. A bloody masterpiece which I recommend watching 100%.

After sending me the video, he told me he had a blog written on this topic (which I recommend reading before reading my blog: https://mavideas.carapanss.com/a-donde-va-el-tiempo-que-perdemos-y-el-que-ganamos/), and after reading it I have some thoughts I want to share.

Manuel said one thing that stuck with me, which is: “Nuestro tiempo como todos sabemos es limitado, y probablemente es lo más preciado que tenemos”, and I couldn’t agree more, we should value it as it is the only thing that you can not buy or exchange, you can only spend it. We mostly spend it working, to make sure we survive, and what we are left with, we spend it enjoying life. Manuel said, “restando ese tiempo, a la mayoría nos quedan varias horas a la semana, estas, las solemos invertir intentando ser «productivos»”, which I can not agree with, as if that would have been true, even though unhealthy, the world would be a much different place and for the better.

When working we tend to stress out over everything, this is unhealthy as stress is our bodies reaction to feeling in danger. Manuel went a bit more easy on stress which I simply can not find right in a world where we, as much as we pretend we do, are not at much risk of death or sickness. “Es evidente que, aunque a corto plazo este estrés pueda ayudarnos a ser más productivos”, correlation does not imply causation, stress doesn’t help us be more productive (it might even do the opposite), it simply exists in environments that aim for high productivity (due to a constant sensation of danger), and that doesn’t care about the health and mental health of the individual. And that is what results in your body hitting its limit, as Manuel said: “nuestro cuerpo tiene un límite, y este se acerca cada vez que descansamos menos de lo necesario”. We shouldn’t feel guilty for taking care of ourselves. We should take the breaks that we need, not as breaks, but simply as something that is part of our person. 

This stress mostly comes from pressure of not meeting deadlines at work, or simply the lack of disconnecting from the “competitive” environment that work has turned into. The worst thing you can do when tired after a day of work where you were stressed due to not meeting quotas is to set quotas on your break or resting time. And yet, if you do as Manuel says: “ahogándonos en un mar de propósitos, metas y autoexigencias insostenibles en el tiempo”, there is nobody at fault but you. If you drown in your sea of goals, is the same as drowning in a half a meter pool, it can happen due to 3 reasons:

1. You are yet not smart enough to be let alone in that pool
2. Somebody made you stay there for so long you couldn’t hold your own weight on your feet
3. You are in so much pain you intentionally held your head underwater until you slowly started to float back to the top

That ‘s why you should ask yourself what Manuel asks next: “de que te sirve haber completado tu lista de tareas, si te sientes un desgraciado o vivir cansado”. You shouldn’t set goals that break you down so much that you can not enjoy their results and your achievements. But again, that doesn’t mean that setting goals is wrong or that they make a hobby less enjoyable. What is important is to be healthy in our goals and decisions. That is why I disagree with Manuel on his statement: “lo más sano para una afición es simplemente permitirnos ser mediocres para poder disfrutar verdaderamente de estas”, one person should not have to choose between one or the other… You can have the desire to be better and the acceptance that you will never cross an amateur level, or simply be good, but you will still be better everyday, and strive for that. 

I think it is common knowledge that there are many things that are more enjoyable when you are better like tennis or pingpong, as you will enjoy it more if you get better, and you will want to be better, while knowing you will never cross the amateur level. These things can coexist, it’s not about choosing one or the other. And sometimes to become better you have to set goals based on what you enjoy. Manuel said, “así que me voy a intentar limitar a hacer y leer sólo aquello cuanto disfrute. Pues es eso lo que realmente nutre el alma, y no el leerse libro de política por semana”, which is the case for somebody that enjoys reading books but for example, if one enjoys debating, you might find your hobby more enjoyable with a book or 3 articles a week as your goal.

That is because goals are external things from your hobbies when they exist (or at list that is the healthy way of doing things). Manuel stated, “convertimos nuestras aficiones en obligaciones”, which is not entirely true, for sports for example, in many cases, people don’t do sports because they make themselves do it. They do it because they aim for something higher, like a good or great physique and that sport is what gets them closest while still enjoying it. Same with reading as I said before, even though our hobbies feel like obligations, it’s not the hobby that is the obligation, it’s the goal that you want to achieve with that hobby (that is in the case you use your hobby to achieve something, because if not, you simply enjoy it).

Goals generally fall into 2 categories, almost never outside:

1. Setting goals outside your hobby to make your hobby more enjoyable
2. Setting goals outside your hobby and using that hobby to achieve your goal.

The problem that many people live with is the one that appears when one sets a goal for something that is not for his enjoyment and instead is as a social pressure or a custom. Manuel made it clear, and I completely agree: “No te dejes llevar por la narrativa popular del momento, puede pagar un alto precio por ello, cuando en la mayoría de los casos lo que realmente queremos, es mucho más sencillo de conseguir que lo que estamos persiguiendo”. We as people are different, we are not the same, and what makes one happy might not do the same for another. Be yourself, and by that I mean love to enjoy what you enjoy and set the goals to achieve what you want to achieve, not what everyone wants, difference is what gives this world its beauty.

The idea that we don’t have the correct hobbies or that we don’t enjoy the right things is what gives our guilt, “Nos sentimos culpables por disfrutar de tiempo de ocio”, the guilt comes from it not being a break, but an intentional action, something you are choosing to do that is not the correct thing to do, which as Manuel said, and I agree, results in this feeling like the biggest sin in the XXI century: “sentimos que lo estamos desperdiciando, por no estar produciendo o lo que es lo mismo, no ser productivos, este, parece el pecado de siglo XXI”.

And yet there are still things that are wrong, and the worst part is that they are pushed by social pressure. Generally those things tend to be categorized as a waste of time, and the only things that are an actual waste of time, are the things that make time disappear and leave you with nothing. As Manuel also stated, “[…], pienso que sí hay una manera de perder el tiempo; las redes sociales”, and with this I couldn’t agree more, and the reason as Manuel also said, is because you don’t do anything, you simply skip over a period of your time. 

It is important to clarify the difference between doing nothing and simply thinking or just meditating which represents time doing something, because when you are finished you are left with something, what you saw, what you thought… On the other hand, when you simply scroll you can’t even remember the last 10 videos you watched similar to what Manuel stated: “no recordemos ni siquiera 10 videos de los cientos vistos durante horas”, and once you close the phone, that time has simply vanished for you. Manuel asks a good question, “hay gente que dice que pasa tiempo en redes sociales porque les gusta, pero ¿hasta qué punto es así?”, and the answer is nobody likes spending time on social media, everyone simply feels like doing it, it’s an artificial drug programmed to make you feel better, make you come back and not know why.

One interesting statement that Manuel follows up with is, “dar un paseo, es tiempo en el que estamos con nuestros pensamientos, el más productivo de todos a mi forma de ver, sin dejar de lado el que pasamos con otras personas, de donde salen muchos de nuestros mejores recuerdos y experiencias”, which is right, because to think without having something to think about is to be insane. The things that Manuel has presented go hand in hand, you think about your experiences and you experience based on what you think. For you to have something to think about you need to interact with things and people, to feel things and then analyse what you feel. 

Going back to talking about actually doing things, Manuel asks a question, “porque, si no eres bueno en lo que dedicas tu tiempo, entonces lo estás desperdiciando, ¿no es así?” and this is a bit different than simply connecting not being good at something with wasting time. The time you waste is the time you don’t use to think, to work or to enjoy a hobby. As an amateur it is inevitable to get better at what you do. Only if you do it 2-3 hours a day, 5 days a week you might hit a limit, and even then, not always. So simply doing your hobby you get better at it, if you don’t get better it is because you are not doing it, and that is where guilt for wasting time comes in, when you don’t understand where the time went. It is not about being the best or good enough, because you can not be, as Manuel said: “¿Cuándo somos lo suficientemente buenos? La respuesta es nunca”, it is about being better, one should not feel bad for not being good enough, and simply be happy that he is better. I can fill this with cliches like, «It is not about the end, it is about the journey» and «One looks at a glass of water as half full while another sees it as half empty». 

In the end, as Manuel said “Nuestro tiempo libre está para disfrutarlo en lo que a cada uno más le guste, llene o haga feliz”, and that’s the point, it is entirely subjective, one might enjoy more or make them more happy to be better at what they do, and in the end, as long as it is healthy, there is nothing wrong with that. 

Why? why should any healthy individual attempt to escape being productive? as Manuel aims to do, “Es muy difícil escapar por completo del yugo de la productividad, incluso a veces dudo de que sea posible”. Once you have an answer to my question, you can do as Manuel said, live, as the cycle of living and reflecting on what you experienced is how you might be able to escape, if you need to, “sin embargo, estoy seguro de que si hay alguna forma de conseguirlo, es a través de la lectura que nutra nuestra alma, y esta vez no me refiero a libros de política, sino a literatura, poesía, espiritualidad y sobre todo mucha reflexión, que es por lo que he creado este blog”. Learning these things makes you not fear self-demand, but understand how to enjoy it and make it healthy. It is not bad to want to feel productive, it is best to want to see changes… The end of the world comes when things stop changing. You should want to be better and know you’ll never be the best, and that’s ok. I honestly think (saying this as an immature person), that you learn this while growing, to be healthy about your metas. The problem isn’t with having metas or wanting to be better at your hobbies, the problem comes with having an unhealthy attitude about it.