A dearth of ennui

Timbo on 2003-10-20T23:13:50

Does anyone else long for time to read a non-technical book? Sleep late? Sit down and eat? My life has become almost nonsensically busy, and I'm beginning to wonder if my heart will explode when I'm 33.

To illustrate: Saturday. I woke up at 4:00 am to my pager going off. I solved the problem, but my one year old daughter woke up, so I had to try to get her back to sleep. As I was putting her to bed at 6:15, my three year old son started crying because he was having a bad dream. At 8:00 am, my wife went to the gym; I sat the kids in front of the TV so I could grab a quick shower, got them breakfast, and dressed them for our busy day.

I cleaned out the gutters on the house and answered another page by 11:00, at which time we put the kids down for an early nap. We cleaned house and I took the van in to get the winter tires put on while the kids slept. Beginning at 2:00 pm, we went to a succession of three children's birthday parties, finally finishing at 9:30 pm. We got home at 10:00, bathed the kids and got them to sleep by 11:00, then collapsed.

It wouldn't bother me, but this is nearly every day. I kind of miss cigarettes... then, at least I had an excuse to give myself a break once in a while.

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Craziness

CromeDome on 2003-10-20T23:24:44

I feel your pain, all too well. I've had to make myself make time to destress of late. . . too early to tell the results, but I'll let you know when I have something worth sharing :-)

I used to run a lot, and have recently been remembering how less stressed I felt when I did. I'm waaaay out of the shape I used to be in, but I've forced myself to take 15 minutes to go run. I'm hoping taking a little time now will make me force myself to take more later on down the road.

Part of my problem is that I don't do the best job managing my time sometimes. By forcing myself to run, I am also forcing myself to make better use of the time I do have so that I have time to run. I don't know what your time management skills are like, so YMMV.

Whatever your situation, I hope you find a reprieve soon!

Re:Craziness

Timbo on 2003-10-20T23:41:05

My real problem is that I take my job too seriously; I end up devoting my weekends to the house and kids because I work too many hours during the workweek, and feel guilty about neglecting my other responsibilities.

I used to shoot competitively; I keep thinking that I should start shooting again. The great thing about shooting is that you must be calm in order to shoot well... you quickly learn to forget about everything else for the hour or so that you are shooting. I've been trying hard to get in shape, but that shape is a pear! :-)

Time management has never been my strong suit... giving myself less time sounds really scary at first, but maybe I'll try it. I now have five weeks of vacation built up, so I could just take a couple hours a week to catch my breath.

I hope you will be able to take a breather, as well. Enjoy the running... it'll be way too cold to run here RSN.

Lack of time

kjones4 on 2003-10-21T00:36:50

I hear you. I work from 9am to 8pm 4 days a week. It's nice to have 3 day weekends, but the 4 work days can be long. I used to get up at 6:30 so that I could shower before I woke my son up at 7:00 to take him to pre-school at 8:00am. Then it's work until 8:00pm and a bus ride home. I spend a few minutes with the family, eat dinner, do a household chore or two and then try to wind down a bit. I've felt so time constrained that I used to stay up and just do something mindless like a game, but that cuts into sleep, which catches up to you very quickly. My solution was to force myself to go to sleep as soon as possible after I get home from work and get up a little bit earlier. It works pretty well, because the family is still asleep when I wake up and I feel like I'm getting a some private time, which is very important to me. I feel a ton better now. The extra sleep and quiet time made a big difference. Obviously, monkey wrenches get thrown into things at times, but it mostly works.

Re:Lack of time

Timbo on 2003-10-21T00:54:37

I would love to do that, but for two very annoying problems: I turn to dust if I get up before 6:00 am, and I snore like a banshee, so I try to let my wife get to sleep first.

I think it would work better for me to get up later and stay up later... that way, my wife would be off to work with the kids in tow, and I could lounge around the house. Letting my wife get the kids ready on her own would not promote domestic tranquility, however.

Maybe I should plan on sleeping in a different room once or twice a week, to give my wife some quiet sleep, and myself a chance to go to sleep earlier. Either that, or I should consider that nasty surgery which removes most of the back of your throat to prevent you from snoring.

Two mistakes

autarch on 2003-10-21T02:10:06

You made two mistakes which make it highly unlikely you will ever be able to be lazy:

1. You got a job where you have to carry a pager.

2. You had kids.

In fact, these are two things I've worked hard to avoid so far, and will continue to do so in the future. Thus, I am able to go out on weekends and play Go, watch fansubbed anime downloaded off the net, read books, go to concerts, etc.

Re:Two mistakes

Timbo on 2003-10-21T18:04:28

While I agree a job that requires me to carry a pager is, indeed, a mistake, I would have to strenuously disagree on your second point. Children are a huge amount of work, but they're worth every bit of effort you have to expend.

There are some rare things in life which produce a net energy gain. Children are one.