Interestingly, I’ve experienced the opposite. As someone who’s been self-employed and working from home for the past six years, I often find I have too much time to think, which has affected my mental health.
When I’m immersed in the actual work for my business, I’m focused and engaged. But outside of that, there’s a lot of time spent alone. Even though I make sure to go out and get my 10,000 steps each day, the isolation and lack of interaction—being alone with my thoughts for most of the day—can be quite challenging
Yes true, I can imagine it's different because I'm stressed with worrying about money and finding more clients etc. If my business was successful and I had time to think that would be more enlightening.
Hi Paul, what you say also resonates with me too - until I started following this thought process with all thoughts I got during my alone time:
Thought appears > i ask myself, "do you have a problem in life?"
Yes? > can i do something about the problem? Yes? Great! No need to stress
I can't do anything about the problem? Great! There's no need to stress, because it is out of my hands and nothing lasts forever.
Or it can be the other way,
"do you have a problem in life?"
no? great! Nothing to worry about then.
My point is, we can only control the controllables and we have to train ourselves to accept what we cannot control. in your case of the lack of clients, to reduce stress realistically all you can do is increase your input to get more clients and remain calm if you don't see results, because it will not change anything except make things worse.
Asking myself, "how can i stop myself from making things worse" is also a GREAT question when I find myself stressed about something!
I have worked for myself for about 8 years now. But find my job massively uninspiring now so I tend to avoid doing my work eek. Then get behind and then get stressed out trying to catch up. Working weekends etc. Which then affects my family life. I’m a daydreamer by nature. I have no issue deep thinking but the rest of it is a fair mess unfortunately. Trying to work through it though. Thats all you can do. Love reading your writings. Thanks 😊
I stare at a blank wall every once in a while, but mostly I like to sit outside on my balcony and stare into the world. The roads below me, the buildings around me, the sky above me. I get into real deep thoughts when I do that.
In defense of all boomers, if we didn't have inherited wealth, we had to conform or we couldn't earn money.
It was different back when we started out. If you moved jobs every three years you were a 'job hopper', workplaces insisted we addressed managers as Mr/Mrs, men could smack a woman's bum with impunity, and one MD I worked with used to lose his temper and throw his phone at people's heads.
It was a giant rotary phone, so he had to rip the cord out of the wall first.
I love it that now there are other choices, but remember that back then, there weren't. Having said that, some boomers are complete wankers!
Great piece - agreed on every point for myself and many others.
Part of being a deep thinker is surely questioning the things you easily agree with. For sake of debate:
- I would say a little elitist in that not everyone has skills to do well operating on their own to make money and or cope without guidance (and social aspect)
- Some find it unpleasant being with their thoughts, are there cases it’s better they don’t explore? Such as realising they are doing life wrong but don’t have capacity to change?
- Do we all need to become elite philosophisers or could a lot of people just spend more time working manually outside such as in fields getting in touch with nature and their bodies and feeling a slower pace of reward rather than the clickbaity rush for distraction.
These questions lead me to pose that we might not all need to be deep thinkers but slower thinkers.
However, totally agree that my admiration is for people that have built the free time into their life for deep thought.
I’d take Nietzsche lifestyle over a bankers any day.
#2 is my current journey. I started out setting a timer for 11 minutes to not do anything. And it was hard! It’s crazy how it’s work to not do anything. And how guilty it feels at first to not do anything and then how pleasurable it becomes.
The other thing I noticed about money, is even when you have it, you still worry about not having it, losing it, or needing to make more.
I don't stare at a blank wall, but I have gotten more comfortable to sitting down and staring at nothing in particular while I let my mind wander. And I started my Substack as my vehicle for expressing my true creativity. I'll work on curating my social media feeds next. Excellent points as always, Tim!
Interestingly, I’ve experienced the opposite. As someone who’s been self-employed and working from home for the past six years, I often find I have too much time to think, which has affected my mental health.
When I’m immersed in the actual work for my business, I’m focused and engaged. But outside of that, there’s a lot of time spent alone. Even though I make sure to go out and get my 10,000 steps each day, the isolation and lack of interaction—being alone with my thoughts for most of the day—can be quite challenging
Depends on the type of thinking though, doesn't it?
Like thinking about stress things is probably bad. But deep philosophical thinking is good.
Yes true, I can imagine it's different because I'm stressed with worrying about money and finding more clients etc. If my business was successful and I had time to think that would be more enlightening.
Hi Paul, what you say also resonates with me too - until I started following this thought process with all thoughts I got during my alone time:
Thought appears > i ask myself, "do you have a problem in life?"
Yes? > can i do something about the problem? Yes? Great! No need to stress
I can't do anything about the problem? Great! There's no need to stress, because it is out of my hands and nothing lasts forever.
Or it can be the other way,
"do you have a problem in life?"
no? great! Nothing to worry about then.
My point is, we can only control the controllables and we have to train ourselves to accept what we cannot control. in your case of the lack of clients, to reduce stress realistically all you can do is increase your input to get more clients and remain calm if you don't see results, because it will not change anything except make things worse.
Asking myself, "how can i stop myself from making things worse" is also a GREAT question when I find myself stressed about something!
Sorry, this turned out to be a long message.
Good luck with your business, and mindfulness.
Writing is deep thinking. It lets writers connect unconnectable dots. Speaking from experience.
Does writing also bring the right people into your awareness?
Yes
I have worked for myself for about 8 years now. But find my job massively uninspiring now so I tend to avoid doing my work eek. Then get behind and then get stressed out trying to catch up. Working weekends etc. Which then affects my family life. I’m a daydreamer by nature. I have no issue deep thinking but the rest of it is a fair mess unfortunately. Trying to work through it though. Thats all you can do. Love reading your writings. Thanks 😊
same here.
I don’t work for myself but I’m in the same boat with employed work!
It’s interfering massively with my life and health. Not happy you’re in the club but also a little relieved to find there is a club!
I stare at a blank wall every once in a while, but mostly I like to sit outside on my balcony and stare into the world. The roads below me, the buildings around me, the sky above me. I get into real deep thoughts when I do that.
"If you don’t write you’re not truly thinking." There's a lot of truth to that statement and to the rest of this post. Thanks for sharing.
"Less information equals more wisdom." I was just pondering this very thing, going through my email. Thank you for this on point thought train.
In defense of all boomers, if we didn't have inherited wealth, we had to conform or we couldn't earn money.
It was different back when we started out. If you moved jobs every three years you were a 'job hopper', workplaces insisted we addressed managers as Mr/Mrs, men could smack a woman's bum with impunity, and one MD I worked with used to lose his temper and throw his phone at people's heads.
It was a giant rotary phone, so he had to rip the cord out of the wall first.
I love it that now there are other choices, but remember that back then, there weren't. Having said that, some boomers are complete wankers!
Wow, this is shocking. What a privilege to be in my generation
All the world's problems is because of people who doesn’t sit down and think for themselves
This is great. I agree with your definition of what wealth is.
Excellent read. A great roadmap to inner peace.
I'll say it for those in the back room ... Nice ;)
Great piece - agreed on every point for myself and many others.
Part of being a deep thinker is surely questioning the things you easily agree with. For sake of debate:
- I would say a little elitist in that not everyone has skills to do well operating on their own to make money and or cope without guidance (and social aspect)
- Some find it unpleasant being with their thoughts, are there cases it’s better they don’t explore? Such as realising they are doing life wrong but don’t have capacity to change?
- Do we all need to become elite philosophisers or could a lot of people just spend more time working manually outside such as in fields getting in touch with nature and their bodies and feeling a slower pace of reward rather than the clickbaity rush for distraction.
These questions lead me to pose that we might not all need to be deep thinkers but slower thinkers.
However, totally agree that my admiration is for people that have built the free time into their life for deep thought.
I’d take Nietzsche lifestyle over a bankers any day.
#2 is my current journey. I started out setting a timer for 11 minutes to not do anything. And it was hard! It’s crazy how it’s work to not do anything. And how guilty it feels at first to not do anything and then how pleasurable it becomes.
The other thing I noticed about money, is even when you have it, you still worry about not having it, losing it, or needing to make more.
I don’t walk an hour a day although I walk a lot.
Lately, I’ve been noticing that my phone has been an added stress so I’m consciously putting systems in place so it doesn’t become my downfall.
As always, thank you for this elevated way of thinking you bring to us in these newsletters
I appreciate this piece not pulling any punches. I think it is important to not sugar coat just how soup crushing the conformist life can be.
I don't stare at a blank wall, but I have gotten more comfortable to sitting down and staring at nothing in particular while I let my mind wander. And I started my Substack as my vehicle for expressing my true creativity. I'll work on curating my social media feeds next. Excellent points as always, Tim!