Where do I find the answer key?
I’m unemployed. I got laid off a little over two months ago from a job at a highfalutin magazine and since I just applied to graduate school, but haven’t heard back yet, I’m caught in this… middleness?
I now have a ridiculous amount of time on my hands. With unemployment checks and the occasional freelance writing assignment, money really isn’t a problem yet. This should be amazing. The job search is on hold until I hear back from schools, so I can now work on all the projects that I always complained I didn’t have time for: I can do things for myself. I’m not stuck at work pretending to be busy; I can now make every minute of my day count because 8 hours of my day are no longer owned by the corporation, the business, the big boss upstairs.
I have this strong need to be productive with my time. I have ambitions, I have hopes and expectations and I need to achieve them. But what, exactly, is being productive? I write out schedules for myself; I go to coffee shops; I get out of my apartment. (This last one is very important to feeling like I am doing something.) Currently I am writing a short story, working on a profile to pitch to magazines, taking Spanish and Mandarin at the local community college, writing for my blog and other blogs, and attempting to further educate myself in order to not waste all this precious time that I have been… lucky enough to obtain?
And yet, I feel like I am doing nothing. What exactly am I working towards? What should I be doing with my time? Sometimes I forget to make my schedule. Sometimes I find myself sitting there with the options and ways I have to spend my time swirling around me: teasing me, taunting me. And I hate it. It makes me sick. In those moments I want someone to hand me a meaningless, brain numbing assignment and tell me they need it completed and on their desk in the hour, because then at least for that hour I can put off the Question: what should I do next?
I constantly fear that I am making the wrong choices. And I worry that I am screwing up my life. I have a very clear image of what a screwed up life is. It is lack of accomplishment; it is lack of meaning; it is a lack of happiness. I want to accomplish something meaningful and from that accomplishment I expect to derive happiness.
It sounds so simple. It should be so simple. We have all the options in the world. Nothing is stopping me from achieving this accomplishment. There is no reason I should be unhappy, or stressed, or worried.
In my pursuit of self education I started watching the talks from the Ted conference and I came across this. It is a talk given by Barry Schwartz three years ago about his book: The Paradox of Choice. Schwartz explains why I am unhappy with my state in life. It is because the choices the modern world has afforded us has also given us greater responsibility. If I don’t accomplish something, if I don’t achieve happiness (whatever that might mean), I have no one to blame but myself. This wasn’t always the case, and in many non-western countries it is still not the case. If I was sold into a loveless marriage and I was miserable because of it, my misery would not be my fault. It would be the fault of those that sold me, or the fault of the system that allowed me to be sold. But now, if I end up in a loveless marriage I have no one to blame but myself. If I don’t figure out what to do next it is my fault. If I waste all my precious time it is my fault.
Schwartz suggests that we’ve gone far beyond the point in personal freedom where more choices added happiness and value to our lives. Now, he says, more choices make us more miserable exactly because of this responsibility and because we are constantly plagued by the thought of the choices we didn’t make: the options we gave up.
It’s nice having an academic verify my feelings.
I’m really not sure whether that last sentence was meant to be sarcastic or not. Please read it as you wish. But what is nice is having a reason why I’m stressed. It’s hard to understand sometimes when, in reality, I’m leading a relatively ideal life. I live in Santa Monica. It’s sunny and warm outside and in a moment I’m going to ride my bike to the beach because… well, why shouldn’t I ride my bike to the beach? Tomorrow is an open book. I’m going to watch more Ted talks, finish my short story, read a whole lot of books. It all sounds so perfect, and yet I’m still constantly nagged by the feeling that it is not enough. Schwartz’s talk didn’t tell me how to fix this feeling, but it’s nice to be able to tell myself why it is what I’m feeling.
And now that I’ve written this blog entry I can tick it off my schedule, go ride my bike to the beach and watch the sunset, and then, god forbid, figure out what to do next.
—Lara Loewenstein
