You can skip this one. It's about to get introspective.

I've been very fortunate to have a little more free time than usual these days. (Which I've filled by getting super lost into Octopath Traveler, which, wow. What a game). Maybe because of that game or just life in general, I've felt more tuned out from the world around me and more tuned in, which has sort of let me take stock of myself. And while there are billions of people on this planet, I think my way of looking around the world is a little unique. Or I'm wrong and it's not at all, but this is my blog and I can write what I want.

So to back up and define things, in life, there are things we do because we want to, and things we do because we have to. Obviously we would want as much of our time as possible to be filled doing things we want to do. But things like work, school, and other things we have to do kind of get in the way. I think many see those things as like, a mental battle they need to carry out every day. Like, they know it's something they don't want to do, and feel dread as it looms closer. Then they have to mentally arm myself to go do battle with it every day. And after, they would feel exhausted and/or depressed that they had to do it. There's probably a big overlap with procrastination there.

Personally, I've never felt that way. Sure I'd prefer to never go to school or work, but I see it as just this silly thing you have to get out of the way so you can enjoy the good part of your day. Like, eating the vegetables on your plate before getting to the part you like (for me that part IS the vegetables, but I'll stick to that comparison). So even as a kid, I guess I just sort of coasted through school. Like, I never seriously thought about why I'm doing this, or even really cared. It's just how things were. So I would want to hurry up and finish it so I can mentally check out, or go back to playing Mario Brothers. I think for many this would lead to sloppy work, but I think a combination of pride and not wanting to cause trouble let me settle on "good enough" as a standard throughout much of my life.

And that has been pretty much my philosophy today. Hurry up and get this annoying stuff out of the way so you can go enjoy yourself. I think to my detriment that this caused me to be a bit aloof and introverted. Like at school I did not really want to talk to people. I just wanted to finish as much homework as possible so I can knock it out and get on with life. This aloofness has followed me, because "stopping to smell the flowers" has never been a train of thought I've taken seriously. Like, "No, we're wasting time with these flowers, let me go back to coasting." I have another draft blog I've been working on where I'm cataloging noteworthy or otherwise important moments in my life before this blog. And honestly, there's not as much there as there should be, because I never really paid attention. Strangely, that all changed in Taiwan. Management at my job there was pretty hands off, and for the first time in my life I did not have a close group of friends that always arranged things to do. I couldn't coast anymore, and had to figure out myself what I liked to do and what I was going to do. So now I will stop and smell the flowers to decide if these flowers are my thing, and determine if in the future it's a good use of my time. Maybe that's why I've always considered Taipei to be my home of sorts, it's where I was "born" mentally, for lack of a better term. I'm lucky then, to have gone there before Bangkok - so my wife had the chance to meet a more interesting and well-rounded version of myself.