You can only do two major things at any given time in life

When I was younger I wanted to be everything instead I became nothing

I don’t know where this quote comes from but this is the first thing that comes into my mind when I think about stretching myself in too many directions or wanting to be too many things.

Recently I read this article by Jason Cohen and it made me ponder a lot about how when I was younger I wanted to be so many different things and never could choose one and work towards it. And most of these things I wanted to be where hundred and eighty degree apart from each other.

Anything serious endeavour will require lots of time and work, casual hour every other evening and maybe some time in weekends may not be enough. The idea of two things is that you only can spend time on two major things during the day to achieve significants. It doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else but the two things are what takes the majority of time.

Lets say you want to build a small business, be an athlete at some semi-professional level and become a doctor. Well that will be quite a heavy lift. Although to achieve all three may not realistic but one of them could surely be done if you would put enough time and focus. But the problem is that the majority of us has our two major things already happening in life.

In the end, it all comes down to time. surely luck, socioeconomic status, physical and mental ability health many others play significant degrees of impact on the outcomes but if you don’t have time to dedicate towards something none of that will matter, because you wouldn’t be even on the playfield to compete for the success.

We all have 24 hours a day and most probably we use around eight of them for sleeping, after sleep we are left with two blocks of eight hours. For a normal person, it is quite likely that the first batch of eight hours is taken by his day job. Afterward, it is probably very unrealistic that besides eight hours of sleep and eight hours of work, the average person is left with eight hours of free time to do whatever he wants.

It is most likely that you will have to chip away from the remaining eight hours you have left for mundane life maintenance tasks, such as eating, shopping, cleaning, etc. And if you are unlucky commute to work can chip away even more. I have known people who spend an hour commuting each way.

If I’m being realistic then probably that third batch of eight hours has shrunk to around four hours. This is to remind you what is left after doing basic life necessities, things like sleeping, working, and taking care of yourself. Nowhere in the equation has come time spent with family, friends and any leisure time. Now, I get it these things could be done as a by-product between or while doing the basic life stuff. But the keyword is a “by-product”.

So we are left with around 4 hours of free time on average for whatever we want to do. But this is still very optimistic, because it doesn’t count in any idle time in the equation if you are like me I can spend one or two hours a day being just tired and laying around after work (and this is not yet even the sleeping time) or maybe consuming social media or in better case reading but I personally have one or two hours a day where I have no mental energy at all for anything productive or meaningful.

In my case, the time I can choose how to spend freely has dwindled to two to three hours each day. Now writing this I’m realizing how very depressing this sounds.

But coming back to the original idea, we can only have time for two major things during our day and most probably we are already doing first thing and are in no position to not do it.

Next comes our choice of what is our second thing. And major things can be anything like family, friends, socializing, a hobby a sport, maybe a gym if we are taking it more seriously and it doesn’t fit into life upkeep time.

And the harsh reality is that we probably can do well only the first thing, the second thing always will come at the expense of the first one. So the split between first and second thing would be eighty twenty or seventy thirty but never would it should get very close to fifty fifty. Because in that case we don’t have first or second priority but just two first priorities and that is not possible so it is more likely both of them are second.

There’s also the option of dividing your time into smaller chunks to try more things, but that risks spreading yourself too thin for it to be meaningful. I think that any significant endeavor requires a lot of time. By lowering the time you spend on something you may be risking for it not to matter.

The question to ask yourself is, “What is my second thing and have I chosen it consciously”. A lot of people may not even have a choice in it and some people may prefer their second thing to be leisure, socializing, or sports, or family time is nonnegotiable. I’m not trying to make the argument that any particular thing is better or worse that is not my goal and I wouldn’t know what is better or worse for anyone except myself and even for myself, I’m wrong most of the time. I want to point to the reality of things and without knowing what is true it is hard to change anything and have the highest likelihood to make the best or most rational decision. Or maybe being happy or contemptuous of the current situation realizing what the cost of change would be.

I wonder a lot of times I feel stuck in life maybe it is because I’m truly stuck, because there is nothing else I can do at that moment.

I believe it is very crucial to be in a position in life where your first thing is really what you would like to be doing with the most productive hours of your day or it leads in a direct direction towards where you want to be in the future. This may be a controversial take; a lot of people may say “Well a job is a job and I need it to pay the bills and take care of people”. I understand we are in the situations that we are and the bills must be paid. But I would argue that the second thing must be spent in pursuit of changing the first thing. Because I think it’s difficult to find enjoyment in life when you spend the majority of your productive waking hours doing something you dislike. Then you end up spending your second thing on coping with the damage done by the doing the first thing.

I have had my fair share of dead-end soul-sucking jobs, that in memory feel like a bad nightmare. I still sometimes think about the people I met there and wonder what they’re doing now. The thought that they might still be there sends shivers down my spine. Like a captive who managed to escape thinking about people still in captivity.

Work doesn’t have to be unenjoyable or difficult. It can be, but it’s not a universal law that it must be. I raise a big middle finger to all the people in my life who have ever tried to claim to me that I should be happy and contemptuous with what I have no matter how small it is and would remind me that other people have it worse. “Yes worse! because similar dipshits like you have told them all their lives they can’t do nothing and just should shut up and endure”. But now I’m going off-topic and unloading my own mental baggage.

People may disagree that their work is their number one major thing in life and will say that it is their family or relationships, or something else they like doing after work. But if that is true why do they don’t spend most of there? I remind you that this is a topic about time and constraints, not a discussion of good, bad, values, or what is important in life. It is nearly a look at personal time management.

What is your first and second thing?