in my ongoing quest to figure out how to be just generally more ok, I keep noticing times that make me feel ok and times that make me not feel ok. Unfortunately, they don’t lead to a concise theory of “what I need to do.”
It does seem like there’s one variable I care about, and it is something like “joy” or “desire for life”. Let’s call it “energy*” here. Clearly there are a lot of inputs to that, though.
| Thing | Tanks |
|---|---|
| Accomplishing a home repair sometimes increases energy*, especially if I feel like I learned a new thing, it went pretty smoothly, and I am 100% done with it. Home repairs sometimes drain energy* if they don’t go well or if they end up messy and undone | mastery, cleanliness |
| Getting a lot of tickets closed at work gives me energy*. Spending a day writing a design doc drains energy* | cleanliness, progress, mastery |
| Winning at Slay the Spire increases energy* | mastery |
| I did standup comedy for the first time. Increased energy* | mastery, socializing (new people) |
| Seeing friends usually increases energy*. But seeing friends with our kids usually drains energy* | socializing (old friends), chaos |
| Spending an hour with basically any kid (under… 10?) drains energy* | chaos, boredom |
| Work socializing increases energy* to a point, then drains it | socializing (new people) |
| Doing puzzles usually increases energy* | mastery, cleanliness |
| Gardening increases energy* | cleanliness, nature, peace |
So, tanks I’ve found:
- mastery: I love being good at things. I think this is like half social and half that it just feels good to be good at things.
- socializing (new people): I love meeting people that I find interesting and building new relationships with them. There is a bit of a “social climbing” aspect to it; it helps if these people are “useful” in some way, and while that makes me sound like a sociopath, “useful” includes, just, “I like you and will ever see you again”
- socializing (old people): rejuvenation from being with old friends and family who at least kinda get you
- cleanliness: I love putting things away, crossing them off my to-do list. I hate when the list grows too big or unwieldy for me to manage, or if I think I’m going to miss things.
- chaos: I hate when there are too many demands on my attention. Not even noise (though usually noise is chaotic), but repeated requests for my attention Right Now
- peace: maybe this is just the flip side of chaos
- progress: it feels good to be heading in the right direction, to be building something. Feedback is part of this; it feels bad not knowing if I’m moving in the right direction or not
- nature: maybe this is just “peace” - but fresh air, sunshine, wind, etc, these all help, sometimes in subtle ways
- boredom: I don’t like it. I don’t think this is the flip side of progress, mastery, or cleanliness, because I can miss any of those and still not be bored (missing progress: puzzle hunts, missing mastery: watching tv, missing cleanliness: maybe a big video game or sprawling artwork)
So, get enough mastery, socializing-new, socializing-old, cleanliness, peace, progress, and nature; and not too much chaos and boredom, and I’ll be set? Hmm, I guess it’s not that I don’t know what to do, it’s just that I can’t do it.
This thought is by no means complete, but it is hard for me to get a post out there, so I’m publishing this for now, and may come back and add things.
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