A day off during the middle of a work week is a great opportunity to reveal to yourself just exactly how you spend your time. No work responsibilities, no weekend errands: you’ve got eight solid hours dedicated completely to you. How you choose to spend those hours is a good indication of what you really want to do.
This Veterans Day holiday, I spent the majority of the day reading. (The Red Rising trilogy is a fantastically good read.) In between two meals and a workout session, the rest was proper couch time with a book and a few cups of coffee. Eat, workout, and books; what more does a person need?
This list of things I chose not to do shatters the illusion that those things were something I actually wanted to do. Videos games? I’ve yet to play a single hour of games on the PlayStation in 2025. I pretend to be an avid gamer, but really it’s the idea of it that’s interesting to me. In hindsight, I should have never bought the PS5 at all.
Go outside and take photos? It turns out I’m not that type of hobbyist photographer. I want to be, but again it’s the ideal of it that I fancy, not the actual process. I enjoy taking pictures during my travels, that remains. Going around locally, hunting down moments and scenes? I am and was never that kind of photographer. It’s time I stopped pretending to be.
Take the car out of a spin on the mountains - for the fun of it? I’ve not done that since the beginning of the pandemic, and I never resumed. The magic of an open windy road is not as alluring as it used to be. I’m okay with admitting that I’m the sort of car enthusiast that enjoy cars as a static museum object. This might be sacrilege for some that consider mileage as a badge of enthusiasm.
Sometimes I watch YouTube car repair videos, and think to myself that’s something I would like to do. If only I have a garage. I should get a garage! Then I can be the DIY car person with chests full of tools and hours to spend tinkering. I could spend a ton of money pursuing that ideal, but I have to remind myself that I’m not even inclined to wash the car these days. What makes me think I’m want to spend a free afternoon wrenching, instead, of say, reading?
To quote the great DJ Khaled: “Never play yourself.”
Light it up.