Free Time

What is free time? Some people might say that it is time without anything assigned to it, that one is “free” to use it as they wish. I suppose that definition works well enough. In between work, chores, sleep, bodily care, and scheduled events lies this elusive “free time”. How do you use yours?

I don’t quite know what to do with my free time. I have many options, but I don’t always feel “free” to choose most of them. And I don’t quite know why this is. I have written before on this blog about being paralyzed by choice, a sort of executive dysfunction I endure from time to time, but I don’t always think that is to blame.

Take reading for example. I used to love to read, and would do so voraciously. Now it takes extraordinary effort for me to read. I have bookshelves full of books I would love to read, but any time that is free to me, I don’t find myself choosing to read. Instead, I end up playing Scrabble on my iPad or watching baseball, or, which is psychologically worse for me, just…sitting there. I rather hate the choosing to do nothing, actually. I feel terrible for having wasted the time, and not having accomplished anything, reading or otherwise.

I should mention that it isn’t always a conscious choice. I sit down in the evening, usually when my free time occurs, and think “I’ll just play one game of Scrabble, and then move on” but I also have this thing where I hate losing, so if I lose, I play until I win.

Wait…

Having just written that, and thought about it, that sounds like gambling. I don’t wager anything on these games and nothing is risked, but the high I get from winning may be no different. This just took a left turn. Hmm.

…

Still thinking here. Bear with me a moment…

If playing Scrabble is like gambling, where I am chasing a high, and it is interfering with what I may ordinarily do, then maybe I need to quit playing Scrabble altogether. Maybe you figured that out already and have been laughing at me, but I’ve just now worked this out.

I have been puzzling over how to chose to do other things, and now it is a little silly to me that the solution may have been that obvious all along, but let me continue with my original thought and see if that leads down the same path. Scrabble. Playing until I win sometimes takes the next game, sometimes ten (I am fairly evenly matched with the Advanced computer I play against, so winning isn’t ever guaranteed). By the time I finish with Scrabble, I am out of sorts, sometimes frustrated, and more mentally drained than I was when I began.

The negative momentum is strong at that point, and I don’t often get off my butt and start something else. That is where I end up sitting and doing nothing or turning on a baseball game. And then I feel I have wasted the evening. So yeah, maybe Scrabble does need to go. Look, I’ve been playing Scrabble because I am afraid of losing my mind. No, really, that has been my rationale! I read that doing crosswords could stave off dementia and other age-related mental decline, and I figured maybe Scrabble against a sufficiently advanced computer would do the same thing (don’t know about that, actually) so I played Scrabble. But it has become, apparently, a sort of addiction.

Back to free time, then. I have thought before about actually scheduling my free time so that I do what I want to do. I think I even wrote about that a while back on this blog: Tuesdays for podcasts and Wednesdays for reading, that sort of thing. I never actually did it, because doesn’t that defeat the purpose of free time? I also get weary thinking about being forced to do a thing, as if maybe that would rob the joy I receive from doing something.

I feel like I am rambling at this point, but also maybe getting somewhere. I read something the other day about being intentional and allotting time for things during free time, which kinda brought all this up in my mind. I think perhaps I do need to, perhaps loosely, schedule what I want to do. Or give myself permission to do whatever I want to do, whether reading or watching baseball or something else.

The other angle to this is the cult of achieving. I have been inculcated with the idea that a product must result from an activity, else it is wasted or frivolous. Sure, reading results in knowledge or pleasure, but I’ve felt it must be something more tangible. Example: I mess around with my action figures, but it only “counts” if I take a picture and post it to social media. Reading hasn’t felt like it counted because it was only for me. Which, again, now that I type that sounds like an absurd thing to say.

Absurd or not, the feeling is valid. I haven’t felt that I can do things just for me because the end achievement was rarely visible to others. And there we have it! I have been living life in the shadow of how it appeared to others. I know in my mind that a life spent listening to bird song and tending to flowers is not a life wasted. It is only this damnable capitalistic society that says only products are valuable, but that is bullshit. And I do know that. But it is so hard for me to resist that ingrained ideology.

I want to break free! I want to use my free time for me, after all, isn’t that why it exists? I will try this thought on for size: time for me isn’t wasted, in fact, it is the most valuable thing there is. Time for me rejuvenates me, enriches me, and adds immeasurable value to my life for me. And that powerful thought is hacking its way through my intellectual thicket.

Where have I come to, then?

1) no more Scrabble!

2) loosely scheduling free time is ok!

3) things done just for myself are valid!

I feel liberated! I have the ability to choose what to do in my free time! It amazes me how well writing works as a tool to work through a problem I have been having for a long time. I feel ashamed that it has taken this long to find my answer, but so glad that I may have one at last. We will see how well this works to break through the fog and indecision paralysis, but for now I am excited!

I began by asking what you do in your free time. I suppose I’ll end by asking: what will I do in my free time?