I recently opened up You Don’t Procrastinate in Video Games for early readers. I’ve been tense the whole time, my shoulders creeping up toward my ears. This is the first time I’ve put my work into readers’ hands. I know there’s still a pile of things to fix, and I want to hear what’s not working as soon as possible, but the uncertainty of that feedback makes me want to run. I sat on it for two or three weeks before sending out the invitations.
And it’s not just this. I always feel like I procrastinate too much, no matter what I’m doing. I should be more efficient. More productive.
I clearly have the time. So why isn’t MARU updated yet? Why are none of my N apps finished? Why haven’t I finished my N books, or self-published them on Amazon? Why do I have such fleeting interests? Why, when I haven’t finished my work, am I playing games and watching shows?
After moving to Malaysia, the apartment we rented looks out onto a forest. Apparently it’s a mountain a lot of people hike.
I’ve wanted to hike it more. I’ve wanted to for almost a year now, and I’ve only gone once, when a friend invited me. It was wonderful. But after that, I never went again.
The reasons are simple enough.
One. My wife isn’t interested and can’t be bothered to go, and without a companion I procrastinate easily.
Two. The mountain is right across from my home, but the entrance is on the other side, a 40-minute walk away.
Three. A single hike takes at least three hours. I could spend those three hours writing apps, writing books, writing blog posts. Even watching a show or playing a game would be fine. Hiking? It produces nothing.
I’ve long been in the habit of treating “time without output” as wasted time.
There’s a lot that falls into this category. Massages, walks, meditation, eating, sleeping. To me, all of it is wasting time.
Put bluntly: as long as I’m not producing something, I’m wasting time.
It’s as if my life runs on a story: I have to keep proving myself, keep producing, keep growing, to deserve to exist.
The me of right now isn’t good enough. But as long as I keep working, the future me still has a shot at becoming more impressive.
So spending a whole day gaming, or a whole day watching shows, feels great. But afterward I feel guilty, like I’m not disciplined enough, like I wasted precious time. I’ve spent most of my life caught in that kind of inner friction.
I was talking with a friend recently. Like me, she also has ADHD, and she also feels guilty and beats herself up over not producing or not “sleeping and waking early.” She tells herself she isn’t disciplined enough. She’s a stay-at-home mom with no income, so she’s always wanted to prove herself. But she said she thinks my accomplishments are pretty good, and it never occurred to her that I’d feel this way too.
Fair enough. If the me of ten years ago, fresh out of school and doing a working holiday in Japan, could see the me of today, he’d probably think it turned out pretty well.
So what happened to me?
Of the 36 game mindsets, my favorite is you’re not bad, you’re just underleveled. It lets me turn “I’m not good enough” into “I’m just not good enough yet,” eases my perfectionism, and lets me start grinding and leveling up. But lately I’ve started to wonder: even if I kill countless monsters and actually hit level 99, will I still feel like I’m not good enough?
I wrote about this in chasing labels and the need to be smart too. I always seem to be chasing something. Feeling not good enough, wanting to be impressive, wanting others’ approval. A good school, a good company, FIRE, building apps, becoming a YouTuber, becoming a writer, producing more. I thought once I got there, I’d finally be good enough.
Some things I couldn’t do, and I got discouraged about them. But the things I actually did do, I didn’t start enjoying either. Each one just confirmed hedonic adaptation all over again. A brief thrill, then quickly back to baseline.
I’ve even started to suspect: do I actually not want to reach the finish line? Because I’m afraid that even if I push my output to the limit and actually arrive, I’ll still find that I’m not good enough. And then what was all that effort for?
So I keep setting new goals, and I keep procrastinating. As long as I haven’t reached the end, I can still imagine that one day I’ll become strong, that there’s still hope.
It seems I can never accept the me of right now.
Maybe more goals, more achievements, more output were never the answer I’ve been looking for.
I once wrote that Frieren can afford to slack off and wander around collecting useless spells because she’s strong enough; someone with no skill slacking off is just a slacker.
I don’t think I’ve reached the level where I’ve earned the right to slack off. Maybe I never will.
But I want to try letting myself, even before I’ve reached my goals, slack off a little and do some things that don’t mean anything.
Even if I do nothing, I deserve to exist.
Even at my current level, I’m already good enough.
So this week, I held back the tension of “I should be doing something,” and finally walked alone into the forest across the street from my home.
