Why is the success of your life measured in how busy you are? I question things.
Wonder why you work so much, so hard or why you work at all? Some of us work as much as 40-50 hours per week. For what? For money? Do we need that much money? Of course, if you are really poor and earn little, I can understand. But if you are not, how come we do need that much? Why can't we be satisfied with enough and spend the rest of the time just living, just being. Some article mentioned that working 45 years is enough to retire. Wow, what a statement. So this is what we want? Work most of our lives? 45 years of a life time? 5 out of 7 days? It sounds like work is more important than life is it? There is this phenomenon I call "the prison of ambition". I decided to work 2 days a week. For some months, I don't work at all and just live. It makes me happier and more liberated. Nobody owns my time, or tells me when I can take a leave. Why does somebody have that right anyway? I mean, I don't want to judge, just think about it. What makes work and all, so important, because we think we don't have a choice?
Every ambition comes with costs, not just in money, but also in effort and time. So when you commit to an ambition, it will come with the costs. You know when you are caught in the prison of ambition. It is when your ambitions are so high that it comes with huge costs: no time to see your friends or family, no time to travel, no time to relax, being overworked and stressed all the time. The ambition becomes a prison. You can't get out. Needless to say, the simple solution is just to lower your ambition and your suffering will lower too. Be happier with less, it might make life a lot easier. Easier said than done. Maybe. But start to think about it.
And if you do have ambition, you don't need to take the traditional route for ambition, the work route where you try to make a career by obeying a boss, who owns your holiday time and tells you what to do. Why is any human being more superior than the other, anyway? There is no such thing. Stripped down, we are all equal. This is why we invented uniforms, to raise a human's level of authority. But, to me, nobody is better than another, nobody is somebody's boss. We should all try to be our own boss. Then everything can be based on equality, negotiation and collaboration rather than enforcement, power and money. Maybe, try to think twice and aim your ambition towards creating a free life, with more happiness, more time to do whatever you really love. You love your job, I hear. Really? If they don't pay you, would you still do it? If you had to pay to do your job (buy it), would you do it? Would you buy your job? Or would you rather pay for a ticket to the tropics and surf, for instance?
Lowering your ambition might make your life easier. It liberates you from the prison of ambition. If you need to have ambition anyways, then why not try to focus all your talents on achieving a higher state of freedom, peace and happiness. Why not? Sounds pretty good to me and I think I have found a way out.
Prisons of ambitions happen to anybody. To me too. It is when I want to carry too many plates at once and drop a few. It is when I need to open my notebook on a Friday night to check a new song edit and causes me to be late for a drink with a good friend. I try to be aware of it and maybe it helps if my ambition is to lower that ambition. I want to surf more, that is an ambition that costs me, but also gives me. However, its prison is not too bad at all. 😉